


Two Wrongs Make One Right (Us)

by RookieBrown



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/F, Fluff, Road Trip, Romance with a happy ending, Suicidal Attempts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-07-13 01:40:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 28,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7133366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RookieBrown/pseuds/RookieBrown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke Griffin and Alexandria Mikealson, both strangers to one another meet in the unlikeiest of places .... the New York's much famed Brooklyn Bridge which has often been dubbed by many as the "Suicide Bridge". It's late November of 2016, a month from the blissful joys of Christmas and New Year's. Yet, here they stand, on the Brooklyn Bridge at 3.30am.</p><p>They say the best things in life comes out of the blue. They say if you look closely you see signs of destiny and maybe this attempt to end their lives might be futile, unhanding certain twists in their path that might make them want to live again.</p><p>Life should be more than just surviving... Clexa AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue : Sweet November

 

Year 2016 coming to an end. Another year.

 

She felt the chilliness of the November breeze ice up her skin as she stood holding the railings of the bridge. New York City was truly insomniac, it truly was magnificently. It was late 3.30 am and still cars were breezing past her. In tangent black, the horizon stood merging with smears of orange and yellow from the surroundings towers as if someone had spread it on the big black canvas or maybe this was how it appeared through an artist’s eyes.

 

She shivered at yet another splash of the wintry night, wrapping the light coat around herself. She took a step forward and peeked down the New York Bridge. The mist was vaguely accurate on the top of the frosty water. No ships or any life boats were in her view of her eyesight. Her mild vaguely dwelled on what would happen when she would jump and embrace the last moments of her life, the cold creeping down her veins, slowly painfully numbing the life out of her body. She immediately stepped back at the painful thought. Who would have thought committing suicide would need this much of work? She has a google history of committing suicides way too much to prove her actions.

 

They say when you are going to die, your whole life flashes in front of your eyes, like a memorial as if begging you to hold back to life for it’s too precious to be swept away in tears and tides. To hold back for the sake of your family, and friends, for your own life isn’t just yours to claim, what of the broken hearts you’ll live behind in your wake. What of it? Clarke thought. She thought like she had done for a month but the pain of a broken heart lashed in scales of betrayal, what of it? What of the suffocation, the claustrophobia she feels even when she stands with her family, the hollowness that is still there even after bottles of cheap rum? What of her voice? Should it be just numbed and swept aside for other’s sake?

 

Is my life not mine to claim? Is it asking for too much for my peace?

 

“First time?” Interrupted a voice from her far right subsiding the inner battle raging within. “I came here two nights ago, didn’t have the nerve to do it and yup, here I’m again.”

 

The pedestrian lines along the bridge was pretty much deserted the last time Clarke checked, so much so the even being foots apart from each other she could make out every word that the stranger said in slim outline.

 

“First time.” Clarke replied but she wasn’t even sure if the question deserved a reply. The stranger was pretty much putting a timescale on life and death and yeah Clarke might be a bit freaked out.

 

The said stranger was pretty much muffled in all layers of warm apparel Clarke could possibly think of for brimming sweet November but even amidst the fur, she saw wild brunette curls spiralling out, dark eyes enclosing towards her but they stopped at a distance, away from her, as if giving her space.

 

“Thinking about jumping from here?” the accent dipped in British tinges didn’t go unnoticed by the blonde, hands shoved inside fur jackets.

 

“Yeah?” came her unsettled reply.

 

The stranger rubbed the un-gloved hands, her own breathe dangling before her in the frost of the atmosphere. “I don’t think that’s such a good plan. The water is freezing down there and it’s close somewhere around -5 to -6 Celsius. You jump from here and” , Clarke noted her hand gestures as she swatted both her palms closing them up and smashed them together, like squatting an insect by the foot. The demonstration creeped the hell out of Clarke. She found stepping back two steps.

 

With measured steps, Clarke peeped onto the unnerving calm waters whistling smoothly down the bridge before glancing at the stranger. The stranger was now standing up close to her, the perfectly sculptured jawline marvelling out in the blurred city lights behind her whose dark eyes widen in questions.

 

“So what’s the plan?” Despite all odds, out of all possible scenarios, she asked about the apparent plan of how to commit suicide with a brunette girl.

 

The girl simply shrugged, “Well, there’s this dock right below. I checked it out. It’s pretty scarce at the moment so we can just …. You know walk into the fatal water chanting whatever last prayer you want until we catch pneumonia or the lungs fill with water.” She paused, and crouched her eyebrows in thought, a small smirk tugging her lips “At least I can die with my face intact that way.”

 

Even in the adverse irony of the situation Clarke snorted at the girl’s reply, “Yeah, you’ll die modest as well. Geez, as if that’s gonna show in your post-mortem report.”

 

The walk down the gloomy lanes of the shipping docks were pinched in silence, and even if there were any sailors or sorts they would be too drunk out of their senses to even notice two bodies drowning themselves willingly.

 

“It’s nice to have a company while you are going down, you know.” She said loud enough for only Clarke to hear, who was following are gracefully on her tail.

 

When the first splash of cold water sipped through the thin layers of her jeans, Clarke almost yelped out only to be stopped by Lexa who pressed her hands on her mouth.

 

“Second guessing, yourself?”

 

“Never.” Clarke determinedly answered but in all reality she was. When is anyone ever ready to actually die? “It’s just … it’s freaking cold.” She wasn’t going to give up. A long series of curses flew out from her companion’s mouth like sand with each foot she stepped in for.

 

“Yeah, turns out we might be dying a painstakingly slow death.” She paused again, and under the dim lights that illuminated the poignant dock air, she glanced at the blonde, “You are beautiful indeed, blue eyes.”

 

You are so beautiful, Princess. The word felt like a distant echo is Clarke’s thoughts. Words were the most dangerous weapon, they would hurt, they would make your bleed without even cutting your physically. No bleeding but you are bleeding in blood tears. And somehow in the shallowness of her water, her steps mismatched. She was toppling over, her hands flung out to balance her outstretched body only to be led by the brunette. Whose obnoxiously green eyes stared at her, with such vigour that Clarke had to look away.

 

It felt as if a thousand cuts were being branded on her skin as she took each step into the looming death. Her sharp intake of breathe wasn’t the only sound around and subconsciously she loomed her arms around the brunette’s who’s skin was already stroked in shades of pale white. The grip on her arm tightened, and by the time Clarke inhaled in a long breathe, she stood neck deep in water. She felt the footing of the river back lose touch of her feet, the only support being Lexa’s whom she was gripping onto.

 

“I’m glad…. I’m glad… I’m not alone too, green eyes.” She didn’t know if even amidst the heaviness of the night the brunette had heard her. She tasted the saltiness on her mouth as she moved up deeper and deeper out of the shallowness of bank, into unknown dark territories. Her death was inevitable, but if she only could diminish the coldness.

 

She felt a stiff touch on her shoulder under water and realized that the brunette had somehow eliminated all the distance ranging between them. Her face only inches away from Clarke’s and it was then, the reeking smell alcohol clogged her nose.

 

The hazy brunette murmured, “Liquid courage” almost to her questioning thoughts and foregoing actions and tugged out a small bottle of whiskey that she had gripped onto as if her life depended on it.

 

She gestured Clarke her poison. It felt like eternity when she lay half drowning in the river, and when she wouldn’t be dying anytime second soon, might as well, die out by going all down, Clarke bemused as she gulped down the rest of the contents of the burning liquid.

 

She couldn’t feel anything. Nothing except she counted her own breathe on the frosty haze. Her clothing clinging onto her like second skin, hands draped around her shoulders clumsily as her companion was barely staying put.

 

“I always felt lonely on Christmas, here in New York.”

 

The stuttering confession from the green eyed girl in the unlikeliest of scenarios fluttered a certain warmth in Clarke. Her own teeth was clattering in a rhyme and her dizzy thoughts wondered what made the brunette come out here, when it was true that New Year’s was only a month away. Another year.

 

The nostalgic waves hit Clarke, suddenly the pain of why she was here in the first place became too raw, too open for her to breathe. She knew it wouldn’t be futile if she questioned her ongoing decisions any further. She tried to drift further into the cold embrace of the docile blue but her legs were barely moving against the underlying current. She felt a mild tug on her wrist, following her seconds into the depth-ness that soon slowly started loosening. Clarke motioned her hands further into the surfacing depth of the water for that humane contact, maybe she’ll find her on the other side, smashing waters in aimless direction but her lids were getting heavy. She struggled against the notion was of opening her eyes until she had the girl within her reach.

 

Maybe it was a hallucination or some sort of a weird mirage but the too bright of yellow light that fell on her eyes directly shutting her eyes permanently, a protest already on her tongue. The blackness was all in now.


	2. Scene 2

_“What the fuck did you do Lexa?” antagonised Quint. His hands were gripping the ends of his desk, rage dripping out his voice._

_“What the fuck do you think?” Lexa raised her voice an octave. Her buttoned up shirt felt tighter around her neck. She stepped back a few steps almost leaning onto the revolving chair for support. Her steel eyes prying out to her colleagues in the conference room, as she pointed out. “I did what any of you didn’t have the guts to do. I bought the rest of the stocks of Brooke’s company and put it up on the market for the triple range.”_

_The words evoked another last of venom from Quint._

_“Based on what? We told you it wouldn’t be safe. We practically warned you every way and yet you go behind our back.” The veins that trumped down his loosened tie grew prominent as he emphasized each word. They ran bizarrely in Lexa’s ears._

_“We already have a debt in the bank and you asked for more. You literally threw us to the sharks.”_

_Another voice spoke out from amidst the remaining two men in the room. Nyko._

_“The market crashed, Lexa. The fucking market crashed and we don’t have the money, a dime to pay.”_

_Lexa forestalled her thoughts, like she didn’t fucking know, she wanted to scream in their mouths. She had been awake the whole night through out and had rushed into the office no sooner the offensive, ground shattering news had spread like a forest fire. She gritted her teeth in agony, in frustration. But mostly anger. Anger at herself. And everyone else in her view point._

_“Nyko, this was what we needed to get us ahead of the race. How would I have known the fucking market would have fucking crashed overnight.”_

_Nyko wasn’t that intimidating in appearance, he was one of the cool heads that Lexa had met but the shrill in his voice, the way he baffled his shaking hands through his unsettled hair, the red in his eyes evicted another persona._

_“So you sold us out? So you put the whole company at stake?”_

_But Lexa held her ground. Her solid footing clattered at the train of accusations but instead of stepping back, she stepped up, held her shoulders high and met Nyko eye to eye._

_“Hold your tongue right there Nyko. You wouldn’t be here, fuck this company wouldn’t be here because of me. You would all be bloody losers scraping behind desks, if it was not for me.”_

_They had known each other for almost 3 years now. Four would be by the end of New Year’s. Any sane person would probably shout out at the low blow, or to the extreme night even slap her face. Any sane third person would._

_“What the fuck you say?” This time it was Quint again who stepped up. In her hindsight Lexa could catch his clenching and unclenching her fists, maybe dwelling on the fact on whether he should actually hit her right across the face or dismiss the thought for she was the weaker sex. Lexa read him like a book, like she did everyone. The emotions flashing like a cinema screen before her eyes. And somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she deserved it. Betrayal never sits well anywhere, even enemies play the certain code of honour, but only Lexa didn’t see it as betrayal. She did what she thought was right for her company. She raised her eyebrows, silently challenging him further._

_Quint quipped, “You always wanted to end up first on every fucking list, make everything a competition. And after all these years this is how you repay us. Selling us out, damn it.”_

_“I did what any good stockbroker does. Gamble on the prices. I didn’t know it would …..”_

_Quint seethed out again, “What, backfire up our asses? I have a fucking family to feed Lexa. We all have a family to feed unlike you.”_

_Gustus jolted as he stood washing hell unfold in front of his eyes. He tried to simper down the venom of his latest words but Quint’s words had already left his mouth. It couldn’t be reinserted back. They had left and the damage was done and Quint himself look mummified by his words. He put a respectful amount of distance between the brunette and himself, bumping into the shoulders of the almost shocked Nyko._

_In all honesty, Quint didn’t even see it coming. The punch the Lexa threw on his right cheek in slow motion as it collided with his jaw, gashing his lips. He felt his body shake out in misbalance as he hit the hard concrete floor._

_Gustus and Nyko kneeled down to their fallen friend helping him out to stand on his wobbly legs. Lexa retreated her hand almost immediately. The pain was numbing. But the gash of blood that oozed out of Quint’s nose halted her anger._

_She had gritted her jaw once before shagging the overcoat and the scarf from atop her desk. Once outside the building she glanced up at the bold black letters POLARIS COMPANY . Ice cold tears wheeled down her cheeks at the possibly unknown tomorrow, the company where she had spent every day and night, sweated out on every brick, the company for which she had left her home, her grandeur of a bloody job all those years ago would be crumbling down before her eyes and she could do nothing about it. Just watch from the side lines as it will shatter._

She coughed up as the bare throat caught up and the first words to mumble out form her shrivelled self was “Water”.

The nurse that was sculling about the light blued hospital room presumably, helped her sit up from her aligned bed ridden position and poured her a glass of water.

 

She felt aching on the upside of her head and when her muffed hands injected with saline water travelled up she found her skull bandaged around, circling the entirety of her head. Lexa closed her eyelids and hummed to recollect whatever detail led her to traverse the dormitories of a chloroform reeked hospital room but they were all hazy at least upto the point where she downed herself with alcohol. She might have had a questioning furrowing eyebrow kinda face because the nurse seemed to be kind enough to fill in the missing details of yesterday or rather the twilight hours of today’s morning.

 

“You, dear and your pretty companion were found high in alcohol swimming in the wintry waters of the East River. You both would have drowned otherwise if the Captain at the dock hadn’t pull you out. He wasn’t very happy about it.”

 

Lexa vaguely remembered a blonde girl contemplating of undergoing the same ordeal as she was but then again as everything was pretty vague, as if seeing through a coloured glass only greyer, but nonetheless, she meekly nodded at the old nurse.

 

“And in your drunken profile, you .. you both were a bit … handful which ended in a hassle which led to a concussion on your head.”

 

Yet again, Lexa didn’t reply. She nodded. But under her breathe she berated herself for being so stupid, she couldn’t even drown without being trolled down to the hospital, paraded about her utter unsuccessful failure, that too with a complete stranger.

 

There was a knock on the entrance that interrupted her suicidal attempt. The nurse took a glance up from her charts and headed out, before adding,

 

“Oh, and dear, your friend is in room 49 down the hall.”

 

“Of course.”

 

Hands shoved inside his black overcoat, stood Gustus. He was a tall man, one of the very handful that Lexa trusted, and one of the few that Lexa actually deemed of calling something next to home. Several moments trailed off before he finally spoke his thoughts,

 

“What were you thinking?” his eyes trailed back and forth the awful fragile state of Lexa’s bode. The mere inspection of pity enthralled Lexa out of her static sitting.

 

“As it turns out, I wasn’t thinking at all.” She shrugged, tugging onto the white hospital band on her wrist.

 

There was that shuffling of nervous feet again and even if Gustus wanted to say something, he seemed to rethink his words. Instead he spoke on his dismal tone,

 

“I don’t want to beat around the bush more than it needs too but your apartment has been sealed off by the bank since it’s the office’s property and the bank has called for a hearing on 28th December.”

 

Lexa took in those words without slipping into a constant ache. It was inevitable. Lexa knew that vultures and the insurance company would have been crawling up their bones pretty soon, but this was all too soon. She apprehended the words, but somehow she didn’t approve them.

_You are very beautiful, blue eyes._ Lexa’s eyes narrowed at those uneventful words that seemed to cloud her mind out of the blue but instantly schooled her expression. She roamed her eyes about the uncharacteristic room and her eyes got stuck onto the window pane. It was foggy. She could probably warm her breathe on it and make out a smiley face against the tilted glass.

 

“You are our guarantor, Lexa and you need to be present at court. You must be. Whatever’s there to savage, even if there’s anything left... “

 

Lexa didn’t reply to the ongoing baffle from the only visitor. That didn’t mean she didn’t listen. She’s a good listener and she was holding onto every word that he was saying but now she was feeling tired. Exhausted.

 

It’s like a month away from Christmas now, only a month away. And New York has always danced in its own rhythm to the tunes of the white Christmases. But despite all the screams for chocolate delights and merry chuckles, Lexa was alone. Christmas echoed the jingle bells of family time, something she has left behind long ago. She felt lonely, to be brutally honest, something she would never tell another soul.

_I always felt lonely on Christmas, here in New York._ Lexa almost shrieked at yet another look into yesterday’s memory lane.

 

“Lexa?” came a concerned call who rushed to her side. “You were listening, right?”

 

She gripped the white railing on the side of her bed and weakly nodded.

 

“I have to go now, gotta start looking for a job, eh?” Gustus joked poorly and the frown on Lexa’s face deepened. She felt a light squeeze on her leg, “We’ll be ok. Just … just be present on the 28th. Please.”

 

 

 

Lexa laid back onto her bed before shuffling out from the hospital bed sheets. Her clothes were placed accordingly on the upper shelf of the nearest table. She tugged on her jeans, over the obnoxiously green hospital gown, which was still drenched around the edges and pulled on her overcoat.

 

She peeped outside the empty corridor, lest someone saw her escaping without the doctor’s consent. Seeing a clear coast, she rushed forward down the corridor hopefully to find a nearest exit somewhere only to literally bulldoze into another rushing body.

 

Bewildered cerulean irises peeked through unrifled blonde mane and recognition evicted her features.

 

“You again.”

“Oh my god, you.”

 

Came both simultaneous replies.

 

Imagery of every fucking moment stormed Lexa’s mind on seeing her. _Blue eyes, she had called her._

 

“Glad I saw you before I was fleeing, you are the fucking reason I ended in the hospital place, greeny.” The girl seethed out, her hand holding her plastered neck in place.

 

“As if I asked you to follow me to the unknowing dark plunges of the underworld.”

 

But there batter was cut short when the screeching sounds of approaching wheels paved down their very path. Panicking, Lexa immediately back stepped to the opposite corridor and so did the blonde but in her polar opposite direction, and soon they were out of each other’s sight.

 

Much to her luck, the first door or rather an enlarged glass window greeted the brunette on her first turn down the corridor. _FIRE EXIT._ The writing was printed out in shocking red over the white wall.

 

Without a second thought, Lexa pulled the glass up and scrunched under it which quite convincingly led her to a back door spiral staircase of sorts. _How convenient, Lexa snorted._ And down the very next turn of the staircase, the same old familiar face greeted her.

 

“Are you following me?” came a redundant question. To be fair, it was thrown at her.

 

Lexa snorted and rather unceremoniously added, “Yes, because you are so attractive and I just can’t get enough of you.”

 

The blonde rolled her eyes as the sarcastic comment. She smirked. “You did call me beautiful.”

 

Lexa watched her step at her pull down another connecting ladder. “One says many things when drunk.”

 

“What happened to your neck?”

 

“Got bummed, I guess. What about your neck?”

 

“Something along similar lines.” Lexa realized the blonde was wearing green scrubs only with tainted boots that revealed too much unclothed skin but even in minimal wear the blonde stranger had a certain flair about herself, albeit her physical attractiveness, of course.

 

“Where you actually going to” , Lexa paused and searched for a pretty wording for her terms but nothing worthy came in mind,” …. You know, planning to die?”

 

“No, I just wanted to take a dive in the East River on the onset of December. Can’t say the incident was pleasant though.” Clarke fluttered her eyes deliberately like a fucking china doll before throwing her a pointy glare.

_Point taken, noted and saved. Geez._

 

“Are you planning on doing it again?”

 

Lexa didn’t answer her directly but in a twist about way asked, “You too?”

 

 


	3. Scene 3

 

“You too?”

 

Clarke nodded sympathetically. _Yes._

 

She felt a twinge around her neck and reached out her hand to massage the outlines of her plastered neck. She saw the brunette scattering ahead of her in a faster pace, so tugging at the shortened length of the green scrub, she trailed after the mysterious brunette to match her fast movements.

 

It was only when they were about to turn up a corner round the hospital, in a thunder speed, that she felt the brunette gasp onto Clarke’s unhindered arms and push her to a corner. She didn’t understand the sudden change in the docile nature of the green eyes and Clarke’s mind wandered off to the late night binge shows of CSI and Criminal Case and the horrible depictions on how a simple, innocent face can turn into a sexual suicidal sociopath predator. She shivered when the unnamed stranger held her by her too cold palms and arrested onto her mouth to prevent the blonde from eliciting any sort of scream. And in that particular moment Clarke pacified. She was going to die like a Jane Doe on the morning hours in New York by this girl,this vigilante basking in beauty.

 

Maybe it was her continuous squatting at her arms or maybe it was the way she inhaling deeply against the frozen palms of the brunette, who was still looking over Clarke's shoulder like kidnappers do before thrusting them on to their white vehicles, that green eyes finally looked at her. And this time Clarke was like really really dumbstruck. Not at the zillion ideas that were squandering in her brain feeding like devious ideas on how she will be murdered today.

 

Evergreen emarald eyes looked at her and Clarke realized for the first time that they were the greenest and probably that haunting most eyes, she had ever got stanced on. So mystic. So unearthly. Her jaw seemed tightly clenched, long and too perfect for a human specimen and the grip on Clarke’s hands felt almost suicidal. And somewhere along the lines when Clarke, but not intentionally at all, had tried to free from herself underneath the stoic face's gasp she might have felt the toned muscles underneath the overcoat rugged overcoat. She gulped.

 

“There were police officers, over there. If they saw us they might have thought we had just run from a mental hospital in these clothes. Now, I don’t know about you but I certainly for one don’t wish to end up in a psychotic cell.” Replied the husky British voice.

 

She softened her reptile hands and moved away a feet steps from Clarke and was now gaping at her, her eyes intensifying on the blonde.

 

There was a momentary pause. “And just so you know, I’m attracted to you in any form or shape. I don’t want any misleading ideas in that tweeny brain of yours.”

 

Now Clarke was truly perplexed at her words.

 

Lexa knew that was a white lie. In mild shades only though. If she could crave a dent into yesterday’s midnight tales, she knew one thing for sure. She had been awed by the blonde’s beauty and now she was enchanted. The stranger’s beauty had in some heavenly way even multiplied under the frosty rays of the morning lights and somehow it was shaking some ground underneath Lexa’s. _Head before heart. Head before heart, she muttered like a chorus._ She was going to be a distraction. And the last thing that Lexa didn’t need right now was bloody distraction.

 

“So should I be relieved that you are not attracted to me or should I be wondering instead why you aren’t attracted to me.” The blonde bit her lower lip for a second. “Not that I want you to be attracted to me or anything, but you know.” The blonde had a coy smile on her face, her big white teeth shining through pink lips.

 

“Whatever,” snorted the brunette.

 

Lexa looked down the empty street and seeing no further possibilities of being detained at the moment, she walked clear past the agitated blonde. But as luck would have her, no sooner had she walked ten steps, tentative feet caught up with Lexa.

 

“I’m Clarke. Griffin.” Smilingly, she whisked her hand forward for a friendly shake but Lexa rolled her eyes off. She could have sworn she had heard the blonde huff “ _you are so rude”_ under her breathe.

 

Finally Lexa decided to give in. It was just a name. “Alexandria Mikealson.”

 

The plausible smile on Clarke was somewhat amusing to Lexa. “Long name.”

 

Comeback for on her tongue tips. She smirked her reply, “Weird name. And I prefer to be called Lexa.”

 

There were definitely about to turn a corner down the street when the blonde, Clarke spoke,

 

“So, um, do you want to try again, together?”

 

Lexa, the finally named mystical being, stopped and looked at her. Dumbstruck at the proposition. _What was it, two in one bonus, a death proposition?_

 

Lexa all but shrieked in whispers, “We are not playing double tennis here that we’ll partner up. I don’t know about you but I’m serious about this. Just leave me alone.”

 

Colour rose into her pale skin. She stepped her ground, finger pointing accusingly at Lexa. “I wasn’t joking either. Fuck, listen, the thing is, I have always needed this push to do something in my life and I just want to make sure I go through this, just in case I don’t falter the last step.”

 

Lexa, always the cautious believer in thinking before doing something, went through her words though she couldn’t help but wonder what made the blue-eyed wonder to desperate to numb her life in forever silence. On the other end, Clarke tapped her boots impatiently at the overthinking Britisher. She was making Clarke roll her eyes so much often that Clarke was fearing they might get stuck back at the back of her skull.

 

“Ok.”

 

“Ok. So we can go back to our place and…” Clarke’s statement was brutally butchered by another shrieking reply her co-suicidor. Suicidor is a term right?

 

“What?” Lexa’s hands flew up at her assumption.

 

“I’m not inviting you for coffee.” The brunette was giving her migraines and Clarke didn’t even have her fill of caffeine yet to tolerate it. “Whatever, we can always go back to yours?”

 

There was a fall in her demeanour. She hesitated her words. “I don’t … think I have any place to call mine anymore.”

 

“Then mine it is.”

 

 

 

They walked a block down to the back side of a red bricked building. If Lexa had wondered why they were entering its premises through the back, rather suspiciously might she add even though there was a very perfect front gate at the entrance, she didn’t word her thoughts. But maybe her face was screaming questions at a sheer volume or maybe Clarke was a sort of mind-reader, when she answered Lexa's most wanted query for the moment.

 

She shrugged. “I kinda don’t have my key on me at the moment, not like I actually ever have it and this way’s much easier anyways.” And the statement unsettled Lexa heavily. The blonde was a utter disaster in a blessing.

 

She jumped a feet or two and pulled down the crinkling ladder.

 

Lexa gestured ahead, “After you.”

 

Clarke narrowed her eyes at the excuse, “I think since you are the guest you should be the one going up first. Come on, hurry up. I’m freezing my ass up here.”

 

 

 

Clarke struggled under the narrow opening of the dingy windows of the 90’s and even though her upper body was up through, her hips were kinda stuck at the pane, embarrassingly. She bit her lips at the current thought that bypassed her mind but finally asked.

 

“Can you push me in, Lexa?”

 

Much to Clarke’s disliking, Lexa smirked. “With pleasure.” And roughly pushed her through making her topple on some of her still unboxed stuff.

 

Lexa even though being rather fit and proportionate somehow met the exact same fate as her one of her wobbly feet got stuck within some box and she too toppled on the red carpeted floor, knocking not-to-wildly on her bandaged head.

 

The room wasn’t a room per se. It was more like an art studio which was albeit the artistic view was nothing short of hell itself. It made Lexa cringe. She watched her step through the dishevelled room, tiptoeing through dirty laundry and white papers that was scribbled across the floor.

 

She looked for somewhere to sit and a detained sofa, of sorts, caught her eyes and Lexa put aside some of the clothes and was just about to sit on the soft surface when the blonde interrupted her.

 

“I hope you aren’t making yourself too comfortable.”

 

Despite the underlying assumption, Lexa sat on the edge of the leather. “In this hellhole? Of course not, Klark.”

 

The way her name rolled up Lexa’s mouth, her tongue clattering against the scalp of her mouth felt almost unnerving, nerve wrecking to Clarke. Maybe it was her lavishing-ly hot accent or maybe it was just Lexa but the sound of her name from her was causing some unnamed weird chemical toxification inside her. Clarke felt she had strong feelings to Lexa for using the name in that way, but Clarke had yet to decide whether it was good or bad.

 

“So, what do you think about hanging?”

 

“I don’t see any ceiling fan or remotely anything hang worthy here. What about sleeping pills though?”

 

Clarke looked into her one havoc of the cabinet shelf. “I have some but not enough for two. For more, we’ll need doctor’s prescription and stuff. Hey wait, we can light my place. Gas leakage? It’ll be all done and done in a second.”

 

The idea oddly appealed to Lexa. “Now, that sounds not bad.”

 

Clarke turned up all the gas stoves, making the gas disperse in whatever small domain of her apartment and Lexa tried to shut through the window but left it open mid-way, _it somehow didn’t want to be shut._ And Clarke searched for matchsticks around and about everything. She found them and standing bravely in front of Lexa, she picked one of the only remaining four. Only. Such was their luck. The stick broke underneath Clarke’s pressure against the friction and so did the next.

 

Lexa rolled her eyeballs and took them from her slip, with a “May I” and lighted up the matchstick but interrupted with a weird question.

 

“Wait, do you smell any gas?”

 

Clarke sniffed round the air, nodding her head in a negative. _What the fuck._

 

The light was about to go off and Lexa started to call out for papers and Clarke without thinking handed her a one or two. Out of which, one turned out to be her gas bill. One which Clarke had somehow, most definitely and innocently forgotten to pay. Fury engorged Lexa and she thrusted the half burnt paper into Clarke’s.

 

“Good heavens. How did you not know?”

 

“I don’t know, because I don’t cook?”

 

“Is this all some sort of a joke to you, Griffin? Because I assure you to me it’s not. If you want to toy around with someone then go to a bar, you’ll find plenty there.”

 

Red hot smoke was releasing from her ears and Lexa had expected some sort of a cranky of bitchy reply in return but no, instead, watering baby blues met her emerald eyes, who quickly turned their back on Lexa’s and whispered a “I didn’t know” reached fell in the open.

 

Lexa was a daydreamer. A reader of poetry and somehow through them, she came to believe that there were some people we meet in our lives, no matter how short of a duration, who are just meant to be happy. People who would just look at you and you’ll feel just a little bit better, and oddly Clarke seemed one of those. And seeing anything less than a smile, let alone tears in Clarke’s eyes trembled something inside Lexa’s.

 

“I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry.”

 

She didn’t reply and Lexa didn’t pry. She looked around the apartment which still looked like as if it had been hit by the latest twister. “Are those cellophane rolls?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“We can both … you know suffocate ourselves.”

 

Clarke picked the alleged material started wrapping the foil around Lexa’s head and she went round and round her, like a merry go round, wrapping it up.

 

“You have such a long face, Lexa.”

 

Before her lips were cut off, Lexa smirked trying to mimick Clarke's voice, “I think the correct words you are looking for is, You have such a well defined face, Lexa.” Even Clarke couldn't stop laughing at the bad mimicry.

 

By the time she was finished Lexa looked as if she had a mummified skull with a human body. Clarke asked if she was able to breathe at all and Lexa nodded a No. _Pat on your back, job well done, Clarke._ And placed the foil onto the brunette’s hand.

 

“Ok now.” And Lexa started rolling the cellophane when midway her work was halted. Lexa was on the verge of doing her work but her steps and the wrap both going sixes and sevens at each other. She was literally blindfolded.

 

Clarke stomped her feet, impatient and by the she turned around at what was delaying Lexa, she shrieked at the scene. She motioned her hands into fast action, pushing up the cellophane that was lashed onto the brunette’s face, like second skin.

 

“Oh my god, I can’t believe I trusted you with this. You cheat, I knew you wouldn’t help me. You were going to die and I would have ended up in jail as your fucking murderer. Murderer.”

 

Lexa pulled up the remaining foil. “You closed my eyes while wrapping, Clarke. How was I supposed to see? I don’t have X-ray vision like superman.”

 

“We’ll give it another go.”

 

And this time, to be sure, Clarke pulled out another extra cellophane roll just in case they ran out. Which, they did. This time it was Clarke who went first and when hers was done, she did the same to Lexa. Only this time, there was no extra third foil. Lexa panicked at it and Clarke too didn’t look far away from it. They had promised they would do this together so frantically Lexa and Clarke both started working on tearing off the clothed mask from the blonde’s face.

 

Clarke heaved in an unknown relief. A rather blemishing thought stuck in her and she didn’t even know why she bothered to voice her thoughts.

 

“Do you believe in signs?”

 

As expected, Lexa’s eyes narrowed, her brows furrowed at the sudden confusing statement. “What?”

 

“Signs like these. Like trying to die and falling at it miserably.”

 

“What, absolutely not.”

 

“I don’t know. It’s like we have some unfinished business left or something. It’s stupid, right?.”

 

“Yeah, it’s stupid.” But Lexa’s resolution somehow faltered this time. Gustus’s words flashed in front of her eyes as if he was just here, telling her, almost begging her to some to the bank’s meeting. _You are our guarantor, Lexa._

 

“Yeah, I guess so. But do you think we should hold this off for some time?”

 

“Then when we’ll try again?”

 

“What’s today’s date? Um, yeah, 26th November. Maybe we can try again on …”

 

“31st December? New Year’s Eve?”

 

“That’s like …”

 

“In 34 days. Yes.” But as if Lexa had been in some trance, she jerked her head to herself, as if some hard truth realization had suddenly dawned on her. “Oh my god, what am I doing? This is stupid.”

 

“Lexa …”

 

But the blonde’s words were sent array. She gripped the door knob and thrusted the door closed behind her and ran down the stairs until she was out up front. But only when she saw the cross road up ahead, she didn’t know where she should go. Where was home?

 

_You threw us literally to the sharks. The market crashed Lexa, we don’t have a dime to pay. You were all bloody losers behind desks. We all have a family to feed unlike you, Lexa. The bank’s called for a meeting on the 28 th December. _

 

_Your mom’s gone, Alexandria, we have to leave this neighbourhood. You are running too fast, Alexandria, I don’t think I ever catch up. You don’t call anymore, are you even alive?_

 

Tears streamed down her cheeks. She sat on the concrete pavement and buried her face in her hands. She felt a soothing hand on her shoulders and the intensifying gaze she gave to the blonde, made her flinch back. But against all odds, Clarke didn’t move any distance, she stayed put, something Lexa was happy for.

 

She sniffed, “I don’t have anything else to live for.”

 

“Me either. So New Year’s Eve?”

 

“New Year’s Eve. What will we do until then?”

 

Clarke shrugged, her lips mildly tugging up. “Things maybe we have stored on over “One Day I’ll List”?”

 

“Sounds good.”


	4. Scene 4

 

Lexa was fidgeting with the loose strands of the green scrub and that had been continuing for a while now. Clarke had been changing in the bathroom for her morning shift as a barista, yet she could also feel her sudden nervousness.

 

She waited for a bit, tying up the laces of her boots in slow motion just in case Lexa asked something. She felt like Lexa wanted to say something, but one way or another, she wasn’t.

 

“I have work as a barista just down the street, “TonDC”. Morning shifts.” Clarke played with the band of her bag-purse, deliberately delaying. “I’ll see you later then?” it was more a question than a statement if Clarke was being honest so she let in hang mid-air.

 

Lexa still was yet to say anything as she stood by the window awkwardly, her feet tapping her wooden ground. Clarke could see her bite her lower lip even from standing at a complete opposite of the room. Clarke seriously wanted to ask her what the heck she was thinking at the precise moment, but then again patience was never the blonde’s strongest virtue.

 

“What is it Lexa?”

 

“Nothing. It’s just …. I don’t have anywhere else to go.” _Can I stay here, was that un-riddled question that Lexa was asking._

 

Clarke instantly recalled her previous words. _Lexa didn’t have a home anymore._ Clarke had been staying in New York for 8 months without coming into human interaction of late. She just went to work, smiled and served, came to this humble abode, ate take-out food, painted when she wasn’t stuck with a painter’s block and gained few pounds. And would often google search suicide attempts and apparently even forget to pay the gas bills as well. That had been life for Clarke for 8 months and once a month she would leave her mom a message to let her know that she wasn’t dead. _Until the day she will be._

 

Her apartment wasn’t small but it wasn’t your typically apartment either. It was just a very spacious space where the kitchen had oddly blended with the living room and the bed in her other room was big enough to fit 2 people, luxuriously. And she even had a well to do bathroom. But all in all, her apartment was simply very …. _Untidy. Dirty for which Clarke could care less._

 

Clarke didn’t have a time to do a pros and cons list over having a stranger over but then again, what was the worst thing that can happen.

 

“You can stay here.”

 

She could tell Lexa was a bit aghast at her confirmation but she didn’t have a time for process it, before she jogged through the 5 flights of stairs and almost ran her way to her job.

 

 

 

Lexa walked the same corridor that she had walked in a little over 2 years span in her apartment building. Her motion slacked at her apartment came close. She knew what she was about to see, and even tried her best to prepare herself for the blow up her face but still she worked until a very sleek black door graced her. _Apartment 307._ And a white notice was pasted on it with red and yellow tape prohibiting anyone and as it seems even the owner of the respective apartment from entering.

 

_Seized by the Bank. Do not entry._

 

For a second, Lexa thought of tearing past the tape and insert the key, turn around the knob and enter her premises. Consequences be damned. But that dreadful thought lasted for only a second. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. She didn’t want any other avoidable trouble for the rest of her company mates. Lexa retraced her steps to the fire exit of her building. She motioned up the back stairs and entered her room through the crystal white glass window.

 

The room looked the same last she remembered. White, pristine with two walls merging the sky white with ocean blue. The bookshelf seemed untouched, each book arranged in alphabetical order. Her bed felt like it had been unslept in for a very long time. She took out a duffel bag from the cupboard and quickly filled it out with all the necessities. And a few and other things here and about.

 

Clothes. Check.

 

Money. Check.

 

Passport, visa, and her other college and bank documents. Check.

 

Toothbrush and its spare, and all other little but important things. Check.

 

Before wrapping up for once, she did a final do over at her book shelf before grapping a few torn out books.

 

Lexa did her best to sort out what was important and what wasn’t but her hands gripped onto anything that they came across and pressed it further in its confined space.

 

She changed herself into much presentable clothes, discarding the slightly itchy green scrub. She looked at herself into the mirror, tugging the shirt into her skinny black jeans. Putting on her same old overcoat, she tied up her threads of her boots before taking an everlasting look at her small arena before departing permanently.

 

 

 

She had always been used to working, even in her idle hours so time and again she would look upon at the blonde’s hanging clock. It was still hours for her to come home and Lexa felt uneasy.

 

She had been astounded when the blonde had agreed to let her stay at her place even though they were strangers. Well, not strangers anymore, but that didn’t imply they were friends, cuddly buddy or anything. They were just something. But, yet again, when Lexa did a do over at the unruliness of Clarke’s apartment, it made her insides cringe. It was dirty to say the very least.

 

Clothes were scattered in heaps, so much so they even smelt. Clarke seemed to have generously skipped laundry for eternity it seemed. There was a hidden rolling chair which was downing in beer bottles and scribbled doodling. There were two ridiculous stage lights and sort of Christmas lights that coloured up the grey stall pillars. Her desk was a culmination of all Clarke’s interests smashed in one. Her laptop screen was open, there was a half empty water bottle, bacteria infested pizza pieces and innumerable photo-framed as well as sketched pictures. Some hanging loosely on the red bricked wall, some scattered on her desk. One picture that caught her eye seemed like a handmade collage. It had a fascinatingly chubby blonde girl with 2 teeth missing, presumably Clarke, smashed between two older people which Lexa thought as her parents. Clarke had borne an uncanny resemblance with her father, who held a joyous Clarke. Adjacent to it, was yet another Clarke centric picture but this time she smiling proudly with a certificate and a grad cloak on, her purple tongue tangling out with another brunette and raven haired girl. The trio somehow perfectly well in the picture.

 

The water coloured paintings intrigued Lexa even more. The picturesque landscapes brushed in such accuracy that Lexa for a moment mistook then to be photographed. They were that good, and then there were some charcoal paintings of unnamed people. Beautifully sculptured eyes, whether they were fingers or a sincere smile or just a face. They were daunting and so tragically beautiful.

 

The pictures, weren’t that many, but all held memories, some high some low, all frozen in time. They all made Lexa wonder how many souls Clarke would be leaving behind if they were to actually go through the plan. How many hearts would be mourning for her? Somehow that feeling didn’t settle well with her. And the thought itself took Lexa at a jolt.        

 

She went to the bathroom which wasn’t at all pleasant, with blonde hair stuck at the drain hole of the bathtub. It carried a smell of distinct cat hair but in reality there wasn’t any cat. Lexa made her way to the unused kitchenette, daring to rub her finger through the layered dust. Way too much dust. She inhaled one long sigh before finalizing her thoughts then started rummaging through the drawers from disposable gloves. She armoured herself with a rather distinct mop, shoved the cupboards for detergents or any other cleansing agent and tied an handkerchief around her nostrils like a guard against the notorious smell and allergic dust she would be diving into. Like we say, cleanliness is godliness, or so Lexa believes. On the bright side, this will help her kill her time, if it doesn’t kill her first.

 

Lexa almost puked when she rushed into the dustbin, her arm stretched as far as humanly possible from her, dumping an atrociously dead rat and a similarly portrayed pizza piece. Lexa deduced that most likely the poor rat was food poisoned by what seemed by close inspection, a year old fungi inhabiting chicken barbequed pizza slice. _Clarke must have an unhealthy liking to too much pizza._

 

 

 

Clarke inserted her key and turned open the door knob, only to be greeted by a dark apartment. Pitch black. _Oh my god, did I forget to pay the electricity bill as well?_

 

Clarke flashed her empty hands vaguely and aimlessly into the air after her search for her phone in her bag went to vain. She tried to find the switch but to no avail even calling out for Lexa for a third time in a row when she heard no reply. With ginger steps, she moved forward only to come crashing straight into her untimely placed chair lamp, bumping her toenail straight into the thick wood.

 

“Fucking hell.” Clarke shrieked out in hard whisper, pressing to the lamp for some sort of illuminating guidance. There on the couch, lay a sleeping Lexa, oblivious to the world around and also to Clarke dented pain, it seems. Clarke tiptoed to the brunette, who was awkwardly snuggled into a blanket, a worn copy of _Wuthering Heights_ open on her chest. There wasn’t any extravaganza in the scene, yet it bore a certain serenity. A layer of peace that was spreading through Lexa’s face. No worry. No pain. No anything. Just sweet slumber, with pale light shadowing the slight tanned skin which added a glow to it. In that very moment, something miraculous happened. Clarke didn’t realize when that yearn, that need arose inside her, like phoenix from its burnt ashes, to draw this second to white canvas.

 

Clarke stared at her. No, she wasn’t staring at her. She admiring the sleeping beauty in front of her who suddenly opened sleep dazed green eyes to meet her blues.

 

“Clarke?”

 

“Hi.”

 

“You are here. Let me just sit up.”

 

Lexa readjusted her oversized shirt and brushed aside a few of her messy strands before discreetly moving around to the switchboard.

 

Clarke was at the verge of losing her voice. No, scratch that. She has already lost them. Her apartment that had been always as sixes and sevens was now pristinely polished. All belongings in uptight in their place. It appeared hygienic, too hygienic for Clarke in her whole 24 year old passage on Earth.

 

She didn’t exactly mean to squeal in her bottled up joy, nor spill out her thoughts right then and there but unwillingly she still did. “This looks like the very first time my dad redecorated this apartment.” She promptly pressed her hand over her mouth, shuddered at her own mouth’s betrayal at those spilled words, one she couldn’t believe she had actually said. Her father’s sudden demise had still left her with a hollowness, even though it has been years.

 

Lexa noticed the stiffness that had worked up in Clarke at the most likely slip of tongue of her father. She didn’t enquire. Prying never did anyone any good.

 

“Your place isn't all that bad. Not to mention, it is precisely located.” Green eyes shifted to the Brooklyn Bridge that enamoured Lexa.

 

Clarke lightened up a bit. She politely replied. “You didn’t have to do this, you know” pointing to the sudden cleanliness of her surroundings.

 

“It’s the very least I could have done. Moreover, I’m one for hygienic living, anyway”

 

 

 

Clarke was one her third beer while Lexa was still meandering on her first one, her face thumped impatiently on her right hand as her mind racked to the possible answers to Clarke’s question.

 

_So, what do you wanna do first? Your any … wish I guess?_

 

Her eyes were on the verge of shutting into oblivion when the chime of her phone. _Another message from Raven and Octavia. Oh God. Which part of “I’m will be staying away at dad’s NY apartment until I get a grip of myself” didn’t they understand?_

 

Clarke had a desire of reading the unread message, or rather those zillion unread messages that had been piling up in her inbox. She had stopped bothering to open up facebook, had called for a short retirement from twitter and her non updated Instagram pages. She swiped the screen again when another text came vibrating it, but as of late, she pretended she didn’t see it coming.

 

It was nearing to midnight. She looked up at the brunette who was fishing around with her finally empty beer bottle but her lips were still shut in tight line.

 

She snapped in a low voice.

 

“Don’t tell me you have done everything you have wished for? Come on, there must be something you didn’t do or I don’t know, put up for later. I mean, what are you like, 23? You can’t be that old.”

 

Lexa’s face cringed. “I’m 25. I don’t know. Can I think about it for some time?”

 

The firm voice had a gentleness in it. And when she spoke in a barely inaudible voice, slightly embarrassed, Clarke’s snappiness just snapped in the November night.

 

“Ok.”

 

 

 

Settling on Clarke’s couch, Lexa shivered a bit underneath the thick blanket. The brunette tried to plough deeper into its interior but fairly, the couch was a bit small for Lexa. Not that, she was complaining or anything.

 

Clarke was about to turn off the midnight lamp in her living room when she saw feet or a major part of Lexa’s legs sticking out, hanging mid-air down the couch. Even in the faintness of the light, she could see the brunette try to fidget, adjust herself in her current position but Clarke could clearly see her struggling. So Clarke did the one thing what she didn’t know she would be doing.

 

Clarke hadn’t shared her bed, with anyone, platonic or otherwise in her time here. It felt odd and somehow it carried the mild allegation that she was cheating somehow, even though she wasn’t. But she felt like it, especially when she saw the other side of the bed dip underneath the stranger’s weight.

 

Lexa had shown her reluctance and had dismissed the idea of invading Clarke’s bedroom, bickering constantly that the couch was fine. Ok, it wasn’t fine, but she could have had worse. But after an hour of tossing and turning with utter discomfort, she finally gave in. Gathering up her pillow and her blanket, soft steps creaked open the unlocked bedroom door. She put down her pillow and shuffled underneath the covers, adjusting herself to the fluffiness of the mattress.

 

Clarke was alarmed when wintry feet touched her warm ones accidentally, “Your feet are like ice popsicles, wear some socks.”

 

"But Clarke I can’t sleep with socks on.”

 

So Clarke dealt the final card on her hand. “My bed, my rules.” Lexa could feel the unflinchingly harsh glare until the very point when the brunette had socked herself and then the blonde turned over her back and faced away from Lexa. Her eyes dulling in another colourless sleep.

 


	5. Scene 5

 

Her muscles twitched in fatigue, chest rumpled up and down in despair to plunge in air, and her ribs were throbbing against her chest, but she didn’t stop her running not until the red brick building was in her peripheral. Right there on its footsteps, Lexa finally sat down, legs spread out in front on the early hours of the morning.

 

After catching on her breathe, Lexa jogged up the stairs to Clarke’s apartment, her hands dwindling on whether she should just enter or knock beforehand, when she heard a scream. Terrified, Lexa almost ran through the door into a shower clad Clarke, who had jumped almost jumped 5 feet high upon the brunette’s sudden arrival.

 

Wet. That was the one word that was cruelly trespassing Lexa’s mind to and fro. Wet and bare foot in a towel, with bubbles springing out and about the velvet skin that carried the detectable aroma of strawberries. Not that Lexa was paying too much of an attention or anything but in all fairness, it is rather hard to turn your eyeballs from a spectacular view even though your consciousness is pricking at your with a sledge hammer to turn away. But she couldn’t not stop staring. If Clarke had not coughed awkwardly to underline her stalkiness, Lexa might have continued.

 

With whatever dignity that was left, Lexa finally turned her back around to the half-naked blonde who was still heaving as if she had seen a ghost, but the still tinge of pinkness that coloured those rosy cheeks was caught red handed in green eye’s periphery.

 

“Couldn’t you knock?”

 

“I would have if it wasn’t of your incessant screaming. What happened?”

 

Lexa was just about to turn herself to face the blonde when Clarke halted her advances, “ …. Don’t turn. Just let me put on something.”

 

The feisty girl somehow looked small in her double sized shirt. Her blonde mane was now tamed as trinkets of water was dripping down her UCLA sweatshirt, drenching the pale grey threads. Lexa ran her hands over her eyes to stop herself to another probable ogling session, so instead she decided to tune in to the one sided conversation that Clarke had been having with Lexa.

 

“ … and the spider came out of nowhere and I just had to bail.” Clarke crossed her arms in front her chest, distinctly annoyed.

 

“A spider?” Lexa asked in an astonished voice. The idea of “it” being a spider wasn’t at all appealing to her.

 

“Yeah. I’m just not okay with a spider trotting through my bathroom. What if it’s poisonous?”

 

Lexa rolled her eyes at the assumption. _Such flair for dramatics._ Her condescending tone, and body language wasn’t much to Clarke’s liking who rolled a newspaper and handed it over to Lexa.

 

“Since you happen to be such a badass, go in and just kill it.”

 

Lexa mocked a feign pouty face to the smirking blonde before stepping into the bathroom. But if her hesitant steps gave any indication, it was that Alexandria Mikealson might be just a tad bit uncomfortable with spiders herself, not that she would say so in front of Clarke and bust her badass persona.

 

 

 

The coast seemed clear so far she had gone the first 3 steps into the bathroom. Her grip on the newspaper roll tightened as she stepped closer and closer to the small bathtub that hid behind the shower curtain. When she finally shoved aside the curtain, it was then she saw the dreadful creature, right there in the middle of the bathtub. And it wasn’t just any spider, it was a bloody mutant spider. Too big, too big, too fucking big for her to defeat alone.

 

But Lexa wasn’t one to back up. Not yet anyway. She padded her newspaper against the wall of the bathtub, at a whole arm’s distance from the alleged intruder, to make it scare away. For moments it didn’t bulge, but when it finally did, Lexa did a sort of an internal dance. But that didn’t last very long. She followed the eight legged crawler as it walked up to the corner of her bathtub wall, only to be greeted up another mutant spider. _Oh my god. Two against one, not fair._

 

She ran out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. She felt white as cold. On meeting the raising eyebrows of her curious roommate, Lexa finally replied. “I think it’s safe to say that the bathtub will be out of use for a couple of days.”

 

 

 

“You can’t keep messing up orders like this, Clarke. Next time onwards, I’ll be cutting from your fees instead.” Elise snarled at the blonde before begrudged-ly smiling way too much to another customer in the line.

 

Clarke thrusted her café apron in the back storage, taking up her jacket and bag. Frustrated moisture was already entering her premises and in her utter annoyance at how her afternoon had ended, she almost collided with a customer. She didn’t bother looking up at her accident.

 

“I’m so sorry ….”

 

“Clarke?”

 

The throaty voice spoke. Clarke looked up at the sound of familiar cords. Emerald eyes met blue irises in a pausing silence, her eyes passing over Clarke’s in something acute of concern and curiosity.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

If Clarke had any doubt Lexa wasn’t concerned, now she knew that she was concerned, even a bit. Clarke schooled in her emotions and immediately looked elsewhere.

 

“I’m …. Why don’t we step outside?”

 

They sat at one of the many bench near the park that overlooked the ice ring. Clarke decided that maybe she could elude the imploring stares of the brunette, who didn’t demand any explanation for Clarke’s change in temper but her eyes. Oh, the way they looked at her, they were silently demanding, and Clarke knew that she could side track everything from someone who might be staying with her till her end of time.

 

“Long day at work.” She bit her inner cheek at the lie, something she was sure Lexa had detected but it was the truth. Half-truth anyway. Lexa took another look at her before giving in.

 

“So, what brought you to TonDC anyway?”

 

“I wanted to, um, answer that question of yours. And your shift was almost ending so .... Anyway, I thought and thought and I realized that, you know, I decided to wait for the right one to do it with, but, you know … “

 

Clarke parted her lips to say something, then closed it again, confused. “No, I don’t know what you are saying?”

 

“I never had, um, sex before. Not conscious sex anyway.”

 

Clarke didn’t know what she should do, should she laugh or should she laugh some more? She wasn’t expecting this. Her parted lips were still very much parted. She could see Lexa squirming before her, flustered at her confession. But all the blonde could see was adult adorableness. Laughter that had been bubbling inside her, finally erupted.

 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She was quick to her amends at Lexa’s stern glare. “So, you are a virgin but not a virgin?”

 

“It was a drunken night. Some visual some blurry.”

 

“So how long had it been since?”

 

“It was in my final year of college. So like, 4 years?”

 

Clarke thumped back into her seat. Wow, it had been 9 months for her and she felt like a fucking desert.

 

“Just so, I have this clear. You had just one drunken stand in your entire life because you wanted to wait for “the one” before you decided do the do and that has been 4 years since. You are practically a virgin, Lexa.”

 

“I’m not.” Huffed Lexa. Her lips were shut in a thin line, her hands were crossed in front of her chest and she pouted.

 

“You are.”

 

“I’m not.” But each time, Lexa said, her stance was depleting.

 

“You so are.”

 

I’m not.” This time, Lexa paused. She lumped her face on her left hand, like a 5 year old child who has just lost her ice cream man, and mumbles out sorrowly, “I’m so lame.”

 

Maybe it was because Clarke, as much as she loved hugs, she also loved sharing them or maybe the defeated voice of Lexa’s tugged something inside Clarke which she simply couldn’t undo it, Clarke flung out her hands and enclosed Lexa in a hug.

 

Lexa stiffened under her warmth. Her shoulders shot ajar in their posture. She wasn’t one to be emotional but within moments she found herself relaxing in it. With measure steps, she found her own ones prompting Lexa to hug the Clarke in return.

 

That uneasiness had carried Clarke’s demeanour when she realized that her hug wasn’t welcome, might have disappointed Clarke a bit. But she did invade Lexa’s personal space without even her permission. What the actuall fuck was she thinking? She was about to retreat when cool fingers threaded through her curls, sending welcoming shivers down her spine.  

 

“Well, then we are going to change that tonight.”

 

 

 

Clarke’s hands drizzled past the uncountable items that were scattered in on the dashboard of her rustic car in search of her key. Yes, it was a very old Chevrolet corvette convertible. It was coloured in emblazing red but even Lexa could see its fading colour and jagged edges. It couldn’t be any less than 15 winters.

 

Lexa eyed the car, no the apparent death trap, a few steps away, not sure what Clarke was exactly planning to do with it. And it was pretty much clear that Clarke was having trouble starting the red demon anyway.

 

Much to her own dismay, she sat shotgun to Clarke who was whispering reassuring words to the dormant inanimate object.

 

“Does it actually work or have we come to just say hello, hi to it?”

 

Clarke hissed her disapproval. “First, this is not a “it”. I call him Ark. And secondly, this is my baby and my baby always listens to me.”

 

Lexa fisted her hand into the empty air. The claustrophobic atmosphere hit her so Lexa decided to roll down her side of the window. Only the knob to pull down the said window kinda loosened from and fell apart on her hand. _Oh my God._

 

And then there was the hanging glove compartment. No matter how much, Lexa pushed it back to its designated place, it only come hanging back briskly falling on Lexa’s lap.

 

Oh, how could she forget her seat? It felt like she was sitting on a godforsaken spring that was ready to bounce her atop onto the beasty’s roof any time soon. Lexa was this close to tearing the car out to its every machinery.

 

Finally, after a zillion prayer and begging, the beast roared into life before giving Lexa any further thought on how to kill it before it actually kills her.

 

 

 

They edged past the mob that was drunkenly immobilized swaying to the beats of the music. “The Grounders” club might look docile, uninhabited from the outside albeit the raging pandemonium but the scenario under the dim lights of the bar was entirely different.

 

“So, Lexa, this is your battlefield. Start preying on your prey.” Gesturing Lexa to the magnamous heads currently swapping the dance floor. Lexa herself snickered at Clarke’s choice of words, Clarke’s thought also not so different. Though she blamed that tone to language to regular prankster of their group, _Raven Reyes._

 

Crowds wouldn’t be Lexa’s scene but tonight was different.

 

As told, Lexa ran a calculated and hardened gaze around the greasy bodies.

 

“No, no not that hard. It looks like you are trying too hard. Just look around casually.” Clarke corrected. “So anyone hit your radar? How’s that guy over there?”

 

“Women.” Lexa delicately coughed out. “I’m into women.”

 

Clarke might have even guessed her preference on women for she might have caught her staring at her time and again, not that she would ever rub it in the face of the already agitated brunette. Clarke giggled.

 

“Lexa? Flirt with me.”

 

“What?”

 

“Like a practice. I can’t have you running around like a headless chicken now can I?”

 

Clarke took up an empty seat, toying with the remnants of her drink.

 

“So, you seem pretty lonely here. Can I get you a drink?”

 

Clarke sneered. “That’s like the shittiest line in the history of pick up lines. Geez, try again.”

 

“Can I get you another?”

 

“This is the 21st century, Lexa. I can get my own, thank you.”

 

Failure are the pillars of success, Lexa wasn’t yet to give up. Lexa adjusted her bowler hat on her hand before doing the unthinkable. She ducked to the other side of the bar, a cocky grin already in place.

 

“How about I make you another?”

 

Clarke raised her eyebrows before smirking out two words. “Surprise me.”

 

All Clarke caught for the swift and astute movements of Lexa who whisked through the shelves picking onto the ingredients, before draining them all into the mixer and placing the dark red resultant in front of her.

 

“A Manhattan, for you.”

 

Clarke sipped the dark chocolatey syrup and her taste buds hummed in approval. The chilled and diluted dryness of the cocktail felt strong in her throat but had this sweet undercurrent, which was so satisfying.

 

“That’s really good. How will I pay you back?”

 

“Just your name will do.”

 

“Clarke.”

 

“Hmm, unusual name” Lexa paused before closing in the distance, giving a lop sided smile to the blonde “ for an unusually beautiful girl.”  

 

The dopey smile that Lexa presented her wasn’t sexy in any way. It was just dopey, and genuine and maybe that’s why it appeared sexy to Clarke. She found herself chuckling at the thought itself. She could almost feel the side effects of alcohol muttering up her bones and the sudden haze of Lexa wasn’t helping either.

 

Moments passed and much to Clarke’s shock or rather amusement, Lexa was still transfixed to her. She didn’t move or even bat her eyelids to check out the many people who were in turn, turning their heads over to watch Lexa. No, Lexa wasn’t moving, she was seating under the fluorescent lights of the bar and was mesmerizing the subtle beauty that was now seating next to her. She admiring the small mole that was sitting atop Clarke’s left of her lips, the pink blouse of her that was clinging to her curves in all the right places. She had tried desperately to look away uncountable times but some force or another pushed her towards Clarke. She was broken from her trance when she felt warm hands grip on her thigh drawing her attention.

 

“There’s a pretty red head checking you out, Lexa.”

 

A release, that was what Lexa needed. She jerked her head up immediately.

 

“Where?”

 

“Your 10 o clock. No, Lexa your other 10 o clock.”

 

She goofily searched amidst the crowd until she finally laid eyes on a pretty red head who was coyly smiling at her and rather stupidly, Lexa threw her an encouraging grin.

 

“You should go get her.” Clarke was already standing up and pushing Lexa towards the girl.

 

But Lexa hesitated. “But will you be …. “

 

“Yes, Mikealson. I’ll be alright and I’ll be around.”

 

The new song started playing, the beats of the music much faster than the last. Bodies started swapping against each other and in this rage, blue eyes lost sight of green.


	6. Scene 6

Clarke frowned at the already empty beer bottle before putting it aside. It has already been an hour since she last saw Lexa and in that one hour many a vivid and unpleasant scenarios have crossed Clarke’s mind about that red head and a certain brunette. _Them writhing in each other’s pleasure, them laughing mercilessly before devouring each other in some dingy bathroom …._ But all these steam heated scenes had left a bitter taste in her. Clarke blamed it on concern, concern for a somewhat stranger who had turned out to a friend under the unlikeliest of circumstances. But somewhere in the back of her mind, there was a thought nibbling, _was she being clingy waiting out in some parking lot when Lexa might not actually come back?_ But she dismissed the thought as fast as it had come.

 

She clasped her bare legs together, the shortened length of her skirt couldn’t prevent her from shivering in the enclosing December chills. Her hands trailed back to one of her jacket’s in-pockets, tenderly bringing out a ring, the plethora of demented memories.

 

Her fingers brushed atop the small princess cut diamond but just a single glance at it somehow still could break her dam of waterworks.

 

“You okay there?”

 

She didn’t realize her silent cries could garner someone’s attention. He breathe hitched, she instantly shoved the ring in of her pockets and quickly ran a dry hand over her moist eyes before turning around.

 

Her ears must have been ringing too hard in the beats of her own misery that she didn’t even realize it was Lexa who was standing in front of her. It seemed to Clarke as if some twisted hand was in play for Lexa always tended to find in her worst hours of her own despair, ones she wanted to cry away in some corner away from everyone.

 

“Lexa?”

 

The voice lain with unshed tears was one that echoed it’s familiarity to Lexa. Forest eyes glazed curiously into those baby blues that were tinted in ruddiness, the tip of her nose rosy as if she had been crying.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

There was a pregnant pause. “I…..” Clarke bit her lips, her eyes closing for a second before she swallowed in her own emptiness. “I’m fine.” Giving a tight smile in reassurance, all Lexa saw a duration. _A duration of how long Clarke could lie to herself before she breaks._

 

But the lie once again just mid-air.

 

“If you say so.”

 

Lexa sat in the unoccupied space beside Clarke. Finally the answer to the question of the hour was to be unveiled but Clarke still toyed whether she would actually like the answer even though the deed was done and sealed.

 

“So, how was it?”

 

Under the city lights and the drastic bill board signs, Clarke saw a faint smile playing on those plump lips. She groaned internally.

 

“I couldn’t do it.”

 

Lexa finally turned to face the blonde who seemed just as bewildered as that forgotten red head who had looked just as shocked. At that moment.

 

“Oh?”

 

Lexa shrugged, her eyes travelling along the relaxing jawline of Clarke’s whose eyebrows were crouched in utter confusion.

 

“Is it because you forgot the mechanism or you are just dormant down there? I mean it’s been like 4 years so I wouldn’t blame you.”

 

Lexa snorted, “I meant I couldn’t do it as in it didn’t click. It didn’t seem like the right moment and that girl was very carnivorous. Handsy and reeked of alcohol. It’s not like I never had girlfriends, I had but I somehow couldn’t do it then and can’t seem to do it now, even.”

 

Even in the snortiness of her features, there was a glimpse of that dreamy look in her eyes whenever she spelled “the right moment” and in that very moment, all of the pieces clicked in Clarke.

 

“Oh my god, you were actually wishing to fall in love.” Her statement shocked Lexa but she didn’t retort. “That, my friend, is one tough of a wish. But you still have 30 days straight to fall in love with a girl.”

 

What Clarke didn’t notice under her rant was that momentary empowerment in green eyes who looked onto the diverted blue ones, before turning back herself. _A crush._ Green eyes mused. _Maybe it’s just a crush._

 

 

 

“Clarke, the car is that way” Lexa pointed out to the oblivious blonde who was blissfully walking a few steps ahead of her in a very opposite direction.

 

“I don’t drink and drive my baby” Clarke slurred.

 

“But you certainly drink and walk.” Retorted Lexa. But Clarke didn’t pay any heed. Her steps as she gulped onto her 6th or 7th beer, the tipsiness of it was finally overpowering her senses.

 

“You shouldn’t drink so much.” The blonde looked upon her companion who was walking in slow steps beside her, her eyes found hers but the brunette didn’t deter from the statement nor looked away from Clarke’s staring, even though frankly Lexa didn’t have any right to comment, but the earnest look in those green eyes held Clarke’s tongue.

 

“It’s just beer.”

 

“Still.”

 

 

 

_What’s your New Year’s Resolution? …. Christmas Gifts for Your Beloveds …. Extravagant Family Dinners This New Year ….. What do you want to do before you die? ..._

 

Lexa’s eyes flickered past each bill board, sometimes she would slow up her own pace if something vaguely familiar caught her eye somewhere in those barring lights.

 

“What does Christmas remind you of?”

 

“Food.” Lexa unabashedly replied. “Roast turkey and smashed potatoes. And … and London. What about you?”

 

“Christmas carols, moonshine ... its’ a deadly cocktail some of my friends invented. And San Francisco.” Clarke tilted her own head at her sudden thought. “This will be my first Christmas away from home.”

_Home._ The word alone send spades in her heart. The nostalgic way that four letter word slipped past Clarke’s tongue, send an unearthly catapult in her veins.

_I have a fucking family to feed. We all have unlike you._

 

“I haven’t been home for Christmas for two years. Haven’t talked to dad for almost three.”

 

Clarke halted when the glassy voice spoke in stuttered whispers. She looked back to Lexa who had already ducked her head down, kicking at something at the ground.

 

“When mom died, we barely managed. Then I moved here permanently when same old sorry faces grew suffocating. I wanted to climb up the ladder too fast and now when I look back I see I have lost my way back home.”

 

Clarke rested her head gently atop Lexa’s shoulder blade. In hushed undertone, Lexa intensified on Clarke’s words. “Maybe you should call him this time.”

 

 

 

“What is this humane sound?”

 

The buzzing sound of the vacuum cleaner was drilling holes into the drowsy blonde’s head. She tried to shield out the loud noise by covering herself in blankets but the noise somehow penetrated through.

 

“It’s called cleaning Clarke. You know that right?”

 

The blonde, in a condescending tone, replied. “No I don’t know. And I don’t wanna know.”

 

She narrowed her eyes pointing to a certain grey layered couch that now situated itself near one of her windows. “Where the funk did that sofa come from?”

 

“Oh that. It’s yours.”

 

“No, no.”

 

“Yes, yes. It shyly hid itself under your heap of dirt, Clarke.” Lexa pulled out her head gear and smiled that lop sided way to the mumbling Clarke.

 

“Anyway, here. Coffee. Low fat.”

 

Clarke made, what the fuck face. “Full fat, Lexa. I like full fat.”

 

“So, it’s your turn now.”

 

“Ahha, so I wanted to do it for a while now. We are going for a dip in the Atlantic Ocean.”

 

Lexa sprung up to her feet at the atrocious demand. “It’s -3 degree out there Clarke. Don’t be naïve.”

 

“So when it’s my wish it’s “Oh, so stupid Clarke” but when it’s you it’s “Oh sweet honey bunny wish”. “ Clarke all but poked hard into Lexa’s right eliciting a groan from the brunette.

 

“It’s not like my wish came true, anyway.” Lexa countered.

 

“It would have you weren’t such a goofy doofus. Come on, Lexa. It’ll be fun.”

 

“Fine. And don’t call me doofus again.”

 

“Okay, doofus.”

 

 

 

Caught in her reverie, Clarke marvelled the sun peeking over the horizon, the clouds looking like baby blue cotton candy, almost transparent and fluffy. The lukewarm feeling was there in the air but it was somehow muffed proportionately to the frost smashes of water.

 

They seem to have travelled kilometres when the distant outline of the land was finally lost in the enchanting panorama and Lexa turned off the roundabout speed boat’s engine. The sound finally deafened and all now rang in Clarke’s ears was the soothing and rhythmic tunes of the rough waves. The brunette was in her cargo pants, legs stretched lavishly out under the imbibing rays of the morning rays. The view simple, nothing exquisite but to Clarke it meant something.

 

She had always wanted to take a long and never ending journey, lazing around in a cruise midst the blue hues of the ocean but never for once she thought she would actually be here, let alone with someone …. With Lexa. How life turns around in a blink was truly enticing. Just a snap in those tips and your world slips.

 

They didn’t talk. They sat in comfortable silence. Just the sound of their breathe entangling with their thoughts. To be a judge of yourself in your own silence. Time and again, Clarke would steal stolen glances at the unperturbed beauty who would also not so subtly be caught many a times staring …. No admiring the porcelain skin of the blonde herself.

 

“Ready?”

 

Another hefty wave smashed against the wooden palate of the boat knocking Clarke almost off her feet.

 

“Lexa, in which bag did you put my swimming suit?”

 

Dutifully, Lexa made way to the emergency bags they had bought along with all their necessary clothing. She rummaged through the contents of the two bags, relatively pouring out everything except their swimming suits. It was just not there. Because Lexa was pretty sure she had left in the car itself.

 

 

Lexa ran her hand through her locks, and sceptically spoke,

 

“I left that bag in the car.”

 

“What?”

 

“We were in a rush and you were practically bullying me …” but the constricted glaze of Clarke’s made Lexa redo her wordings “ …. You are persuading me to push that beast of yours which just stood dead in the traffic for hours, I just forgot that bag.”

 

But Clarke somehow doubted Lexa’s words. ”You weren’t keen about this trip. How do I know you didn’t do it deliberately?”

 

Lexa lobed her arms, “I can still swim Clarke.”

 

Upon seeing the blonde puzzlement, Lexa quickly stripped down her pants to reveal her big checked boxers with a white tank top. But it didn’t reveal just that. From Clarke’s perspective, it revealed a curly haired statuesque girl in maroon boxers who was rubbing her elbow in awkwardness. It revealed the labyrinth of dark ink that was smashed through the long toned arms. Something that made Clarke realize she hadn’t paid much attention to the brunette as much as she had thought. Yet again, in such a short passage of time, Clarke was yearning from paper to standstill the inked memento when she had been facing an artist block for months.

 

“I’m not gonna strip.”

 

“No one in a 10 km radius is here to see you.” But the pointy glare at Lexa’s direction almost made her turn a shade of crimson darker. Not that she didn’t picture Clarke in a swimming suit or anything. Being gay, and that too single and even more in such … glamorous company had certain downfalls, it seems, but that didn’t imply Lexa would jump her pants any day, any time. She was a woman of her word and there’s always that two letter word that Lexa respected; Self-dignity.

 

“What, me? No, I’m not interested in seeing you that way at all.”

 

But the bashful smirk of hers was only growing, infuriating Lexa just a tad bit. She braced Clarke, “What do you want me to say? Oh my god, Clarke, I’m just dying to see you in that suit?”

 

Clarke deflated at her tone. “No need to be so harsh about it.”

 

“It’s just a waste of time whatsoever. Come on, I’m turning the boat around ….. “

 

But instead where once stood a blonde, just lay shrugged off boots and black pants. Momentarily followed by a splash in the blue.

 

 

 

Lexa panicked. She rushed to the railed sides of the speed boat, turning heads here for the resurfacing of blonde hair. But nothing. All Lexa saw was the dominating power of crystal waves rushing towards the drifting boat.

 

It was only then she saw a tiny figure feet afar from the destined boat, wailing hands in the air with the brunette’s name crying out from her lips. Lexa threw out the floater but it didn’t reach that far. Hell, it didn’t reach more than half the distance.

 

So Lexa did the one she never thought she would actually be doing. She jumped into the symphony of the ocean. But no sooner she leapt into its arms, she started speedily sinking down under its pull. Her legs and arms sprang into desperate action to keep her afloat but the saltiness was already pushing down her face.

 

“Help! Help!” she yelped and within moment’s notice, hands dug onto her waist bringing her close to the floater.

 

Calming her shallow breathe, she finally looked into the clouded fright behind the blues who was gaping at her in rapt attention. Who all but shrieked into her ears.

 

“You can’t swim?”

 

Lexa had the decency to look a bit ashamed. “I’m just not that good.”

 

Clarke exasperated. “Then why the fuck did you jump?”

 

“I thought you were drowning.”

 

“I wasn’t drowning.”

 

“But you were screaming, how the hell was I supposed to know?”

 

“So you just jumped the boat ….. oh my god, the boat. Lexa, the fucking boat. You left the fucking …” Clarke jumped her hands maddeningly and Lexa was too dumbfounded to voice her thoughts. There was the boat, drifting away and away from them until it appeared as a prickle in the ocean.

 

The boat that they hired on lent had mercilessly left them stranded in the middle of nowhere.

 

“You left it fucking unattended.”

 

“Thank you for stating the obvious. Though might I remind you, if you hadn’t recklessly jumped into the unknown to show off your skills we wouldn’t be in such a situation.”

 

“So, it’s my fault?”

 

“Again, you are stating the obvious, Clarke.” The sinful and total nerve wrecking way Lexa silkily rolled the “k” in her name emphasizing on the “r” boiled her water. She splashed handful of water to the irritated brunette’s face.

 

 

 

“Do you think we should swim ahead? We didn’t drive that far, you know.”

 

“But in which direction?”

 

The sun was towering in their east, so New York coastline should definitely be in its polar opposite direction. Or something.

 

“That way.” Peering over the blonde’s shoulder.

 

 

 

They hadn’t made much progress though. Clothes were pummelling against her skin, she could feel the cringe in her body against the salty water. And her legs were hurting.

 

“I have to pee, Clarke.”

 

Clarke looked visibly revolted. “No, not here.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because … it’s disgusting.”

 

Lexa winced underneath the pressure against the urinary bladder.

 

“Why don’t you just swim over and you know…. it will wash away with the waves by then?”

 

“No way, Lexa.”

 

“Clarke.” Lexa whined. “I’m going to die because you didn’t allow me to pee.”

 

 

 

“I’m sorry, Clarke.”

 

Two words made Clarke swallow her anger. Lexa was gripping too tight onto the floater, her knuckles already taking in white shades. Her eyes found the soothing waves to be more interesting.

 

“Don’t.” Clarke stopped her string of apologies. “I like it better when you are stern instead of all apologetic.”

 

“I have never been on an official holiday before.”

 

Clarke could feel the slight tug of a growing smile against the crook of her neck. Cool breaths decorating her back, making her clatter even more.

 

“That’s crazy, Lexa.” Clarke gasped but couldn’t break that small smile growing in herself.

 

“I was busy.”

 

“Doing what?” Clarke asked to quench her curiosity.

 

“Earning money.” She sighed. A long sigh.

 

The crinkles of her hand’s foliage was growing prominent. Clarke wondered maybe this was how she was supposed to go. Slowly.

 

“Ark, my car, it belongs to my dad. Belonged to my dad till he passed away. We shopped of it together.” The mere memory of it blossomed a grin on the paling face.

 

“Ark’s nearly 17 now. I kept it with me for closure at that time but it turned out to be a constant for me. It’s been 7 years since but even now I feel closer to dad when Ark’s with me.” Clarke’s voice finally quivered towards the end. She didn’t know why she had even told her, maybe because Lexa would understand instead of pitying that the pain of losing someone doesn’t diminish over time.

 

She felt resilient arms fence her from both sides, holding her steadily to her floater. There was a respectable inches gap between them but her presence echoed four words. Four words that didn’t include _I am so sorry_ or _Time heals all wounds._

 

It spoke, _You are not alone._ And that was enough for Clarke.

 

“But with all due respect to your father Clarke, the car is still a monstrosity.”

 

Trust Lexa to break the ice.

 

Clarke finally gave out a hearty melodic laugh, one Lexa was sure she could listen through great lengths of time and never get bored.

 

It was enough for Lexa.

 


	7. Scene 7

“Did you find our speed boat?” Lexa asked the designated captain of the plausible patrol ship who had rescued them after a prolonged 2 hours hiatus in the water.

 

“Yes. We actually came across your boat first but seeing the passengers missing we set out for the search.” His authoritative tone replied as a matter of fact. He was a man of good old age, almost ancient in appearance but the way his eyes shone spoke of wisdom beyond his veteran era. He spoke something to one at the wheel before excusing himself down the deck.

 

Lexa and Clarke were both muffed under heavy covers but the frostiness palpitated their skin like needle still riling up the skin hairs almost perpendicular. She could see the coastline, the end of their havoc destination in her far view point and was close upon not noticing the nearing and the odd shuffling and bump of heels of Clarke’s and her’s until she looked into those icy blues. She weren’t essentially pointing at Lexa, rather they were curiously staring at her lap and when they most probably felt the burn of green, they looked up. Eyes fluttered, up and close speaking in their own silent language. It was then Lexa looked up the man whose petty scrutinised gaze was ogling the unclothed bare skin of the exposed blonde, who had been sitting in her panties.

 

Clarke shifted again towards Lexa, almost pushing her to the verge of her seat. Lexa’s eyes sought those of the man again, who now thought it was time for him to mesmerize them with his crooked black teeth.

 

“Reckon you can relocate your eyes elsewhere mate?”

 

The venom that flared in her icicled voice paused both pairs of eyes to look at her. The sturdy man had the look of a predator, the sneer on his face was something that Lexa was urging not to punch off. The blonde, however, looked terrified. Not for herself, but towards the man who was the subject of her dismay and anger. It was nerve wrecking. Controlled but aimed only to kill.

 

“And reckon where should I put them, love?”

 

His perception, now concentrated solely and solely on Lexa’s toned skin, quite deliberately portraying his taste be known as he flashed his eyes up and down her bod. The surveillance made Clarke’s blood boil. Her jaw tightened and the strength she held onto the seat, her nails digging in her skin, urging her to not leap over the man and kill him himself.

 

But Lexa had somehow heard her unvoiced adrenaline thought.

 

“Then I’ll just have to relocate them for you.”

 

Lexa’s stiff fist was inkling in agony to punch the headlights out of his dim twitted brain. But Clarke held her by her wrist, almost struggling to not unbid Lexa out of her hold.

 

“Clarke …”

 

“He’s not worth it.” But Lexa paid her no heed.

 

Luckily, it was the voice of a third voice that cessed all movements.

 

“James, we are inbound.” But the captain underlying warning tone quivered him back to his shell.

 

The captain handed Clarke the last of their bags, before biding them a farewell, sending them off with a kind smile and three words that caused a turmoil in her. She kept rewinding the words over and over again like a broken tape recorder. She didn’t not what she should do with them or why did they even matter? They were just words from a stranger.

 

“ _Your girl’s feisty, Ma’am.”_

 

 

The drape over her irises blurred her vision. Her eyes were still cloaked with slumber and she didn’t know why she had woken up until she felt ice feet shuffle against the warm ones. She jolted them back in unknown contact and it was then she realized it wasn’t alone. She wasn’t alone but the proximity at which she slept next to the now lain brunette, their faces facing each other, had caught her off guard. Her warm breaths were cascading Clarke. Her lips were parted, a bit ajar as air moved in and out in steady steps. And under the silver night, Lexa looked like a mere silhouette, a shadow. Clarke almost caught her frown in her sleep, making the blonde wonder what was Lexa dreaming off …..

 

The unrelenting sounds from her phone ruined her orchestra of thoughts. She didn’t bother looking at the name of the caller and just snapped open the saved message. It was her biggest regret.

 

“Clarke baby ….. princess, princess …. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for not telling you. Fuck, please … we both made mistakes. I …. thought over it. It’ll be hard but I’m willing to forgive you. We can start fresh, baby please. We’ll adjust …. Couples do that, right? I … I miss you so much. Come home, Clarke, please. Fuck, please …”

Into the aloofness of the night, that heart wrecking voice flew adrift. Clarke didn’t stop the message half-way. She couldn’t. She was transfixed. Rooted. She inhaled those babbled words, the tipsiness behind them echoed through electronic waves and they burnt Clarke.

_Princess._

_We both made mistakes._

_Start afresh._

_We’ll adjust._

_Miss you so much._

_Please._

 

Upheld emotions breached her dams. And when silent tears were turning into messy sob, with a last, almost longing glance at the sleeping brunette, Clarke rushed to the bathroom.

_Summer of 2012._

_They say you become 20 only once. Making 20 sound like a milestone of some sort almost competing with the accomplishment of 18. Endless night of alcohol and partying or so she hears. Which is true since Clarke had seen and done it first-hand. Clarke had woken up bright and early mostly due to the inconvenience of her phone which had been chirping to its own rhythm ever since twilight._

_Clarke had dutifully scribbled up and down all her messages but none where from her. Clarke should have gotten used to it like Niylah had gotten used profusely apologizing for not wishing her first thing in the morning. Instead she would throw Clarke an extravagant wild party filled with exquisite gifts along with their ritual midnight love making. It was all fun and love but somehow Clarke didn’t get used it. Her missing Clarke’s birthday every once in a while, it still hurt Clarke._

_And that was how, she found herself palming her face in a cartoon of chocolate to elevate her from her distraction of not calling Niylah immediately and screaming at her through the phone. She never considers herself one who falls pawn to jealousy or clinginess but surviving college in LA when your girlfriend is studying in Chicago and henceforth maintaining a long time relationship can be very hard. Niylah, on the other hand, saw jealousy not as a notion of love but rather through the eager eyes of possessiveness. One Clarke wasn’t very appreciative off but when you love someone you love them for all their flaws and Clarke loved Niylah just the way she was._

_Her bedroom door flung open to reveal her mom who was almost sleepwalking in her night robe._

_“Niylah hasn’t called you yet?”_

_“She forgot my birthday again, Mom.” Clarke frowned deeply, her words slurred over the mouthful of ice-cream._

_“Then I’ll leave you to your sulking.” She smiled timidly before closing the door. Clarke didn’t even have time to retort back with sharp commentary. Instead very much against her own dismal she got back to her sulking nature._

_The final drop of the sun lingered over the emblazoned horizon. Dusk was finally melting to night. She hadn’t come nor was she picking up any of Clarke’s calls or messages. Clarke was getting worried. Her eyes were so allured by the palate of colours, she gasped in shock when warm hands encircled from behind._

_“Guess who?” asked the mundane voice. It was her, finally._

_“I don’t know, Raven? Octavia?” Clarke toyed with her guesses._

_“Clarke?” whined that imploring voice._

_“You missed my birthday. Again. Forrest.”_

_Blindfolded hands finally let go and Clarke had her vison back._

_“I had a very good reason.”_

_Warm doe eyes stared at her and Clarke forgot why the hell was she even holding a grudge for? But this time, the baby blue eyed woman wouldn’t get so easily swept off her feet. Clarke miffed in annoyance._

_“Come on, it’s your birthday. You should be nice to other people.”_

_“What? I have to be nice to other people on my birthday?”_

_“Yes, princess.”_

_“And where did you find that rule?”_

_“Clarke Handbook 101. Now, come on I have a surprise for you.”_

_“What ….. “ But Clarke let herself go adrift in Niylah’s flow to their backward. Apparently where she went down on one knee and pulled out a box from the tucking of her pants._

_Clarke was pretty sure there was a collapse in time, that utter momentary pause in the loop hole of time. Her heart thudded against her chest. Skipping multitude of beats at Niylah impeding actions._

_The dirty blonde’s orotund voice spoke those words, peeling the ring out of a velvet box, that Clarke still remembers now. Scarred over her skin._

_“You are my person, Clarke Griffin. You have been my first friend. My first lover. You have been my first kiss like a midsummer’s night dream, my boundless sky, my reality and the one and only love of my life. Make me the luckiest woman alive by marrying me?”_

_“Yes, Yes, Yes.”_

_And the silver ring frosted with a white princess cut diamond on top was slipped into her ring finger. Somehow sitting there on her finger, the glamour of the ring exploded ten times more. Or maybe it was because Clarke was truly happy. Impatient hands had run into each other’s hair to relish to moment forever. To stall time from running out._

_Here in the backyard of her father’s house, under the orange beams of the drenching sun and the shied away stars as witness, Clarke was finally set to marry her love, Niylah Forrest._

The pain was overwhelming. It was like ripping off your bandages and teasing and pushing into your unhealed wounds. It was like breaking your wild heart behind your caged ribs and watching it crumble in front of your eyes.

 

Love always came with the seven sins. But to be ignited, incinerated in flames of broken promises and hindered faith was something that Clarke never could have fantasized. But as it turns out, sweet love indeed can betray.

 

Months and months of solitude couldn’t keep Niylah away from her dreams but somehow today Clarke felt only anger and sadness towards her lover. And Clarke was saddened by the fact that now it felt only anger towards her. Not love. Not hope for a future. And certainly not forgiveness that Niylah was pleading so much for.

 

And somehow in her own maze of riddles, Clarke desperately wanted to breathe. To be alive, to go home for once without shadows of your own doom trailing you. She cried for her father, she cried for Niylah, above all, she cried for herself.

 

Sitting on the concrete floor, Clarke did the one thing she promised she wouldn’t do. Not until the 31st . Her last thought trailed back to fragments of Lexa, her detached yet concerned eyes, her cold yet so warm arms and how her thoughts didn’t hurt for Clarke once. She thought of her broken promise to Alexandria before she picked up the bottle and soaked the burning fluid in.

 

Clarke could feel it churn her insides, twisting and twirling down her throat, then her food canal, slowly igniting the flesh inside her.

 

She felt like dying.

 


	8. Scene 8

 

It was somewhere around 4 am when Lexa shuffled under the blanket pulling her dormant self closer to it. Sleep driven eyes were barely open and hastily Lexa moved her left arm open to the blonde’s side only to find it empty. The side of the bed was cold. Too eerily cold.

 

There was haziness in her vision to some degree when she mildly crashed into the night stand before calling out her name. Only she didn’t reply. Lexa thought that maybe Clarke was in the living room but the room was as dead as it could be.

 

“Clarke?”

 

No answer came to Lexa’s third call. Finally, she knocked on the wooden board of her bathroom. The sign “Knock Knock” with smiley face and a tongue poking out was mocking Lexa.

 

“Clarke?” Lexa waited until she called again. Frantically, she tried on the door knob which was locked. The signs of the upcoming scenario was paling the insides of Lexa. It was becoming vaguely and vaguely too familiar. Almost banging on the door on the last time, Lexa decided to break it open.

 

It didn’t break on the first try but desperation was making Lexa’s mind ran havoc. On the second time she finally wrecked through the door, running to the unconscious blonde who lay splattered on the ground. Emerald eyes flew to the empty container of bleach, her suspicions proved true. She cradled Clarke’s head on her lap, erasing he white face of her blonde locks. Lexa was no doctor but she looked for any sign of pulse. She checked her wrist, her throat but she found none.

 

“What the fuck, Clarke? Fuck you.” She felt saltiness in her vision but jerked her head out of her reverie. Now wasn’t the time for tears.

 

She ran out for her phone dialling in 911 but the same monotone reply was barring her ear lobes out. “Please hold. We’ll get to you as soon as …..” Lexa clenched her jaw in frustration, throwing her phone to the nearest concrete. Time was ticking, and every second she wasted Clarke was nearing to her permanent sleep.

 

Lexa was still in her boxers, when she cradled Clarke in her arms, like a mother does to her child sheltering her away from all harm, as she bolted out of the front door car keys fisted in her palms. The flight of stairs felt endless and she felt her legs and arms almost give up on the excessive weight that now lay asleep in her arms but Lexa wasn’t the one to give up. Not when Clarke was at stake.

 

Lexa bitched Ark mercilessly when it didn’t start on the first try. Her thought immediately went to Clarke who might have actually killed her if she saw Lexa bitching in such an unsavoury way to her precious baby. Red eyes peeled themselves off the road, and trailed for a minute second to the tugged in blonde before getting in to locate the nearest hospital.

 

 

 

The white lights. The chloroform reeking air. Green scrubs. The zeal rush of doctors and nurses screaming _Emergency_ at the top of their lungs, cramping around the patient. And their consolation. Everything made Lexa nauseous. Families standing, waiting in front of OTs in endless corridors. Everything made Lexa relive her mother’s death again and again. It was like an itch on her skin, a jump in every step of her footing whenever the door of an OT would open and the doctors would come out bearing news that might actually shatter her stance.

 

The doctor, a woman who would be treating Clarke and assured Lexa, a squeeze on her shoulder, with a “She’s in good hands.” before stalling Lexa behind and disappearing somewhere behind those hefty grey doors.

 

And Lexa waited. _It takes as long as it takes_.

 

 

 

Ice blue eyes flicked open after being asleep under some endless enchantment, but they felt heavy. Too heavy to open for more than just a few seconds. But it those few seconds, she saw a blurred imagery of her familiar brunette. Snoring lightly on the couch. Her presence acted as some sort of a silent promise that made Clarke grin, even her smallest ones. It felt …. Good.

 

She barely heard a distant third voice say, “She’ll be here. Sleep.”

 

The stimulation of the drugs in her system was tempting her to fall into another sleep but Clarke was fighting it. She wanted to look at Lexa properly for the last time, even though she didn’t realize it wasn’t a dream.

Under her breathe she mumbled two words. “Thank God …” Her voice slurred as slumber final stole her.

 

 

 

The following time she woke up, she didn’t feel the dizziness nor the throbbing of veins inside her. But her near coward act from the previous night had left her hallow in the core. Her vision finally drifted to the other occupants on her room.

 

She first looked upto Lexa who had a sudden stiffness in her posture. Her back was acutely straightened, both of her hands were tugged behind her. There was a clouded redness in those fluorescent green, almost cold in her stare. As if she was looking at her, just looking. Lexa didn’t even bother to close the distance between them, just maintaining her ground from afar. Clarke didn’t know why the hell was she disappointed at her demeanour but the hurt was cringing through her features with ease.

 

“Are you alright, Miss Griffin.” Inquired the other occupant. The doctor. Burnette in a far darker shade, somewhere in her 30’s.

 

“Just Clarke.” Clarke say nonchalantly, her mind and eyes still stuck on Lexa’s. “I’m fine.”

 

After undergoing all the minimal left over preliminary tests, the doctor addressed Lexa to head off to the pharmacy for a few meds just in case Clarke’s wellbeing didn’t go smoothly. Lexa didn’t hesitate in her stance, ordering the nurse to accompany her in case Lexa forgot something. Clarke watched with great amusement as the big man scowled before her demands but under her sonar beam of a glare, he hardly stood any chance.

 

“Your ….. “ the doctor began, her finger trailing behind the slim brunette, waiting for further acknowledgement from Clarke since the doctor herself didn’t want to assume any form of relationship between the two girls. Clarke, on the other hand, confusingly added, “Friend?”

 

“Aww, friend.” The slyness in her tone muttered a ruddiness in Clarke’s cheeks who ducked her head.

 

“Your friend is ….. very hardcore. She literally fought the nurse, Jordan when she wasn’t allowed to stay any further. I have never seen Jordan shiver against a girl half his size, but I have to say it was very interesting.”

 

“She loves commanding people. Second nature.” They shared a short lasted laugh over the commandeering nature of the brunette.

 

“So what was it?” The doctor was still scribbling on the final documents on her clipboard, very likely signing off the release papers for Clarke. Her abrupt question caught Clarke off guard who reeled back in her bed.

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“I meant what made you want to commit suicide? What was it? Lost your dream job? Abusive parents? Heart break? Didn’t stand up to your expectations? What was it?”

 

“Does it matter?” Clarke snapped at the matter-of –fact tone of her doctor.

 

“It doesn’t since you are alive. But it should matter because you wouldn’t have made it if not for your friend.” The said doctor pulled a seat next to Clarke.

 

“I have seen people wishing to die for worst reasons but I have also seen people want to live despite their worst reasons. Life can be very harsh when it wants to be. Despite all shortcomings, life is a rare and beautiful thing which many fail to see. Until the very end.”

 

“I guess, the irony is most people is just happy to somehow make it through the day. To survive.” The melancholy in the blonde’s voice struck the doctor who offered her a gentle words.

 

“Shouldn’t life be more than just surviving, Clarke?”

 

Clarke didn’t know the answer to that. Theoretically, yes, life should be more than just surviving. But the want, that want to live you need a reason for that. A reason that was eluding Clarke. She needed a reason to live and right now she couldn’t find any.

 

 

 

Lexa nudged Clarke out of her boulevard of day dreams, placing a ring on her lap. It was her ring. Clarke’s residual breathe clogged inside her. She barely responded when Lexa told her, she had found on carelessly lying on her bedside. And reasons on why she had been here in the first place flushed through her mind. Her eyes were saucer shaped, jerking to the brunette who stood at an arm’s length away from her. Unwanted, hardened tears again broke through her lashes.

 

“I need to tell you.” She sniffed her words.

 

“You are not ready to tell me.” Lexa was impassive. Too unflappable in her approach. She nodded in a no.

 

“But you deserve to know.” Clarke almost implored.

 

“That doesn’t matter. When … if you are ready, I’ll be here to listen.”

 

 

 

The ride home was vexed in silence and so was the coming evening. They didn’t talk at all until it was necessary. This diversity in Lexa’s demeanour was chewing in Clarke’s bones but she couldn’t come forth with anything, or something that wouldn’t end in tears.

 

Lexa lay snoring awkwardly on the grey couch, the pages of her withered book open on her chest. Clarke remembered the visible bags under toning her eyes, she had even pointed them out but Lexa paid no heed. She said she was alright. But she wasn’t. Clarke could see her struggling under her mask of indifference and it didn’t help when she was keeping Clarke miles away from her.

 

 

 

_August of 2003_

_The silence reeked of dead silence. Her father was somewhere around, probably on the phone with some doctor. That was what he did all the time, in his spare time anyway. Pulling his hair out, tongue tying his incoherent tears so nobody would hear him, but sometimes his daughter would stole those moments, wishing silently if she could ever take away those pain._

_Somewhere in the old kitchen of her house, an 11 year old Lexa was gingerly moving the steamed noodles out of the stove, whisking away the hotness that was burning her tiny finger tips. She poured the hot liquid into her bowl, finally satisfied with her meagre success she headed from her mother’s room._

_Her mother lay on her head, fragile, too thin, and almost transparent. There was a dampness underneath her eyes, her head mostly bereft of any hair and oh the croaked and chapped lips and those broken muscles in her cheekbones. It was a pitiful sight but yet there was that same ever radiant smile, that undiminished light in those green eyes._

_Lexa was pretty short for her age, so she curled on her toes and placed the plate on her bedside, slowly starting to devour out her self made meal._

_“Did your father make it for you?” asked the hoarse voice from beside her._

_Lexa had proudly nodded. “No, mama. I made it.”_

_Her mother against all her creaking bones and shallow stolen breaths tried to get up in a sitting position. But the voicing in her head were igniting her in painful horrors shouting at her to stop it. Instead she subsided them, sat up and engulfed her child in her embrace._

_When watery tears hit her clothing, Lexa had pushed back her mother, washing away her tears in anguish._

_“Are you hurt, mama?”_

_But blissful tears were already pouring. “I’m so sorry … my sweet Lexa for …”_

_Sorry for not being a mother you needed, you deserved._

_Sorry for contracting brain tumour._

_Sorry for making Jonathan and you, go through this again and again._

_And then started that rib breaking, throat tearing coughs. Dry coughs that urged her to pull her contents of her stomach, forcing her to halt midway. She was struggling to breathe but even in that shortness of breath, she told Lexa the one, perhaps the most important thing in life._

_“Don’t be afraid to love, Lexa.”_

_But the muted child back then didn’t understand the weight behind those final words who jumped on her feet to call her father._

_Her mother’s eyes were clipped shut. She lay on the bed silent when her father rushed it. Her father had desperately screamed her mother’s name that awful night, jerked her head, checked for pulse but he couldn’t find any. He didn’t give up then. Instead, he begged Lexa to stay strong as they sat in the back of the ambulance beside the almost lifeless body of her mother._

_The white lights. The chloroform reeking air. Green scrubs. The zeal rush of doctors and nurses screaming Emergency at the top of their lungs, cramping around the patient. And their consolation. There hushed and hurried whispers that her mother wasn’t anymore, that she had gone without any hurt._

_She didn’t cry or scream. She just ran out that day. She ran and ran, pushing past long legs until she was outside the hospital doors. Her own shadows heaving to match her speed and so was her father. Whose shrill cries muffed her ears._

_“Lexa, please. Lexa. Lexa ….. “_

 

 

 

“Lexa, Lexa ….?”

 

She trembled under the approaching touch of Clarke, almost toppling out of the couch. Perspiration mixed with salt tears had wetted her face.

 

Clarke hadn’t realized what she had drawn until the vague black outlines were done scratching through the lengths of braided curls. But there were still certain minute details that needed emphasis. With a content smile, she went back to draw her muse when hurried, uncoordinated breathes stopped her. Clarke rushed from her seat to the struggling brunette who was reliving her own nightmare.

 

The outstretched hand of Clarke’s touched her clothed arm.

 

“Hey, hey … you are okay.”

 

Lexa’s unsettled gaze finally fell the blonde. Who forwarded her a glass of water. She didn’t question Clarke who ran soothing circles atop her shirt, they were long strides on her arm, long and gentle and she found herself leaning into her touch.

 

“You are okay?”

 

Lexa sighed in agreement and it was then she saw the parchment paper lying callously on the table. It was a painting of hers, draw acutely right and astonishingly beautiful. Her features had been magnified by degrees and the mere thought that the blonde artist had drawn her, out of all, made her heart skip a beat.

 

“You make me look too beautiful.”

 

Lexa was so engrossed admiring the masterpiece lain in charcoal that she didn’t notice the shortness of breath that tightened Clarke’s insides who eyes trailed lazily against every feature of the brunette, nor the reddening of her ears at the underlying compliment.

 

“You are.”

 

With almost flushed cheeks, Lexa looked back to the blonde artisan who evaded her eyes, but very goodly the brunette could see crystal clear a thunder hidden behind those shadowy eyelashes.

 

_Don’t be afraid to love._


	9. Scene 9

 

Lexa indulged her head upon her folded hand, as she lay awake at 2 am in the morning. Distantly Lexa meandered upon the shallow contours of her blonde who had her back towards her. Lexa knew she was asleep, transfixed in her slumber and Lexa hoped she was dreaming. Not running in the wilderness of her nightmares. Distantly yet again, Lexa swayed her fingers in the air, shadowing her touch on that sleep ridden girl, nearly relishing the touch of silk smooth skin and jumbled up curls. She berated herself moments later for not being able to take her eyes off the cerulean beauty. How could she when she didn’t know what might actually happen to Clarke if she did? It was a panicking thought in itself, to wake in darkened dawn and not find the blonde beside her.

 

She stared up at the good old ceiling but seconds later, like a moth to a flame, her eyes gravitated to Clarke. Like an invisible string that pulled at her heart. Lexa wanted to blame it on her mommy issues. Of not being able to save her, even though Lexa knew very well she couldn’t. She tried to reason herself, factorize things but they were all a crumbled mess.

 

Soon after, her mind couldn’t help but wander into uncharted territories, to the story behind that anonymous ring. That graveyard shadow that had embalmed Clarke’s face when she saw it, her stutter, her guilt and the collage of her breakage. Lexa didn’t stop her thoughts there, instead she wondered about the glass pieces of a bleeding heart left on hold somewhere and frowned when she questioned herself if it was Clarke whose heart was broken. That singular thought was stinging enough for Lexa, a taunt to her own self to stop herself to dwell any further. Lexa corrected herself, to not be such a child and bicker about a silly crush that she had unearthly happen to have on someone that was most likely someone else’s, but she couldn’t somehow help but crush on her. Her, who was making Lexa feel like a love struck teenager.

 

Having enough wrestle in the silence, Lexa finally got up from the lumpy mattress, the chilliness of the night blinding her skin. With haste steps, she tiptoed to Clarke’s side tugging the dismembered blanket closer to her bod before making for the living room.

 

What Lexa didn’t notice was the slight tug of a smile somewhere in moist blue eyes who snuggled closer to the sheet.

 

 

 

“We should do something?” Lexa once again thrusted a low fat coffee with whipped cream on top, earning a what the fuck, again look from Clarke.

 

“What?”

 

“We should do something.” Lexa emphasized, sipping her own hot beverage.

 

“I don’t feel like doing anything, Lexa.” Clarke reluctantly shrugged. But her words ran into deaf ears.

 

“We should go somewhere. What do you say?” The idea had suddenly pricked Clarke’s ears but her reluctance still showed.

 

“I don’t know. What’s with the sudden spontaneity?”

 

“Nope. It’s more like upholding a promise we did to ourselves. I don’t know about you but I for one, don’t break them.”

 

Clarke bumped playfully against Lexa, feigning shock. “You are guilty tripping me? Fine. Where do you wanna go?”

 

“I don’t know. Where do you wanna go?”

 

“Anywhere.” _But here_.

 

“Wait a second.”

 

Lexa jumped off the mattress running straight to the plastered white wall on the other end. She picked up a dart from the board beside and handed it over to Clarke. Who was utterly confused at the gesture.

 

“Throw the dart anywhere on the map and we’ll go there.”

 

The suggestion of Lexa’s was definitely erroneous but Clarke didn’t feel much bothered by it. It seemed … doable?

 

The first time didn’t exactly go as planned. It kinda went a bit haywire.

 

“It’s in the middle of a bloody ocean.” Lexa shrieked, hands gripping her own hips.

 

The second time wasn’t much better either.

 

“It’s …. Ahhh, some place, Campo Azul? Is that even a place?”

 

“Nah, doesn’t sound like a place.” Clarke trivialized.

 

They say third time’s the charm.

 

“God Lord, it’s ….” Lexa peeked into the position, irked. “In some desert?”

 

Having had enough of the commentary, Clarke made way for the map herself. She narrowed her eyes to pinpoint the location of the thrown dart. It was true it ended at some desert which was on I-80.

 

Eyes widened at the realization. “You didn’t look closely, Lexa.”

 

She pulled up the pin and placed it to the very end of the highway. The shimmer in blue eyes had now erupted into a sharp twinkle.

 

“We are so going to Las Vegas, Alexandria.”

 

The enhanced joy skimming out of Clarke’s made Lexa do a sort of an internal dance. Clarke was happy, even it was for the moment and that was a success in itself. She clapped her palms together,

 

“I don’t think we should waste money on planes. I’ll look up for buses or trains.”

 

“Lexa, let’s drive.”

 

“Ark?”

 

Clarke hummed.

 

 

 

_“Hey, Gus. It’s me. I …. Won’t be in New York for some time. Staying with … someone… a friend, I guess. But I’ll be back soon, so don’t worry about anything. Take care of yourself and An. And the company, while that lasts. Well, gotta go. May we meet again.”_

 

Lexa twirled her phone in her hand. Thinking and thinking and thinking. Should she be doing this? Is it even viable for her to leave when your company and your men were at distress? What would the others think? Should she really running into the wild, unknown like a child who has no weight on her shoulders when she should be actually standing her ground here? Should she even go with Clarke? If she didn’t go, would Clarke be disappointed? Thinking, thinking and thinking. The pros and cons of her benignantly long list.

 

_Give me a bloody sign, I don’t know what to do._

 

“Coming, Lexa?”

 

Lexa twirled the phone in her fingers. She hesitated but she plucked up her residual courage from the ground. Finally, she placed her phone on Clarke’s desk, picked up her duffel bags, locking the blonde’s apartment behind her.  

 

 

 

Life in New York was rushed, fast paced. No time to flip flop and if by any fault you weren’t able to keep up with their breakneck pace, then you must let others pass you peacefully. That was one of the first rules that Lexa had learnt in a bad way. But now they were almost on the outskirts of the city lights. The highway traffic was there but everybody was in their own pace. No ear rupturing honks nor the scream of scurvy cab drivers cab drivers. Lexa tugged one leg over the other, her eyes scanning through the final few pages of Wuthering Heights. She appreciated the endurance of the almost crippled book but the yellow pages in front of her were more than just a book. Books were her silent companion. No complains. No demands.

 

“The silence is killing me, Lexa.”

 

Her eyes didn’t leave her book but her ears picked up at the blonde’s rant. Personally, she had been wondering when the blonde who throw out her limbs and seek attention.

 

Her book might had covered a good portion of her face but Clarke could nearly catch the small smile that the brunette teased her with.

 

“We haven’t been driving for more than 40 minutes.”

 

Clarke exasperated. “Whatever. Wanna play 20 questions? come to think of it, I actually don’t know much of you. So…”

 

She turned her head, clipping fingers tips in front of the woman who was nose deep in her book. Lexa’s eyes widened dramatically,

 

“Ok but just keep your eyes on the road. We are on a highway after all.”

 

“Ok, geez, Grandma.”

 

 

 

“So are you a cat or dog person?”

 

“What?”

 

“What what?”

 

“Ok, umm …. I’m more like a fish person. Had one too, once upon a time. I named it Fish, seemed convenient and easy to remember. But An’s horrendous cat soon made Fish it’s new dinner. Her cat eats anything and everything.”

 

Lexa scowled at the memory and even felt pity on the goldfish that hadn’t even had the chance to complete a month’s anniversary.

 

“Oh my god. Amen to that demonic stomach. By the way, Fish is an innovative name.” Clarke nodded her head, chuckling hysterically.

 

“No pets?”

 

“I wanted one. But mom was allergic or more like “I like it from afar but don’t make it come close to me”. You get the picture.”

 

 

 

A messy bun never had any appeal to Lexa until now. Until she saw that way those curled locks which were scrolling hastily above the driver’s pale forehead. Clarke’s both hands were tight on the steering wheel and often Lexa would find her tilting her head a bit to move the strand of hair. The brunette had to quench her urge of controlling her hands lest they did it themselves.

 

Her staring was caught red handed when Clarke cocked an eyebrow at her.

 

“Any crazy stories you want to share, Griffin?”

 

“Yeah. So, there was this one time where I was dared to annihilate the campus by drawing up lovely graffiti in my underwear. Got caught though. Fuck, Titus wasn’t happy that day.”

 

Lexa’s blood ran cold at the ensued “underwear”. This was not Lexa was looking for. Her vulgar mind, side-tracked Lexa’s pleas to not indulge in semi-nude imaginary pornographic pictures of Clarke Griffin. But no, Clarke youthful tale had added the fuel that it needed to gear up its unsavoury engine in action. The result, the tightness in the pit of her stomach and the shot of pleasurable pain in between her thighs. Lexa tapped her feet, giving Clarke the best impression of her smile. She couldn’t have Clarke know what her treacherous mind was dwelling in, she just couldn’t die of embarrassment.

 

“Titus?”

 

 _Thank god, Clarke didn't take notice_.

 

“Yeah. Just a guard but thinks the campus as his own kingdom. I heard he had taken up a secluded life, you know, nun kinda. No wonder he has no hair, must have been dying off sexual frustration.”

 

 

 

“Any hidden talents I should know off? You know your way in the bar pretty well, you can drive a boat …..”

 

Lexa smirked. “Can’t give up all tricks up my sleeve, now can I?”

 

“Hardy har har.”

 

“I know krav manga, if that helps.”

 

“Badass, Commander.”

 

Lexa nodded her head, eliciting a hearty laugh.

 

“What?”

 

“Back at my office, I’m called the Commander. Wow, the coincidence.”

 

Gleefully, Clarke mused on that thought as well. _Fucking coincidence, indeed._

 

 

 

“What’s your middle name?”

 

“What makes you think I have any? What’s yours?”

 

“I asked you first.”

 

“Well, I asked you second.”

 

“That’s okay, Clarke Dolores Griffin.”

 

The pregnant pause and the almost shrieking of tire wheels jotted both of them, but fortunately the car didn’t actually stop.

 

“What the fuck, Lexa. What the fuck … how did you know?”

 

Lexa snickered in pure delightment, hands clapping against her thigh skin to control herself. The utter shock on Clarke’s face, the mouth gaping perfect O at the slip of the supposed-to-be hidden truth was such an icing on her cake.

 

“Your insurance bill. Don’t be mad, I think it’s a pretty cute name. Clarke Dolores Griffin, has a nice ring to it.”

 

“I’m gonna stop my car and choke you.”

 

“Then I’ll use my safe word. It’s Dolores, by the way.”

 

“Fuck you, Mikealson.”

 

 

 

“So, what do you do?”

 

“Stockbroker. Pretty decent one, or I used to be. What about you?”

 

“Artist. I think you might have gathered that. Have my own gallery back home. It’s all been pretty good.”

 

“Lucky you.”

 

Lexa almost didn’t hear her say, “No, not at all.”

 

“So a closet romantic, huh?”

 

Clarke was about to look at Lexa who somewhat hissed to keep her eyes on the road ahead.

 

“What?”                                                      

 

“I had to say something to break the ice. And a certain someone promised me a mind baffling adventure.”

 

Lexa folded her knees and sat diagonally on her seat, facing Clarke. It’ll be almost an hour since they have been on the road now.

 

“Have you read Wuthering Heights?”

 

“No but why do I think I’ll be going to a crash course on it now?”

 

Lexa nervously bit her bottom lip.

 

“Well, most doesn’t consider Wuthering Heights to be a romantic novel. It’s not compassionate nor heroic but more petty and devastating. It’s like an antithesis to the concept of heroism. The protagonists are too proud to tell their true feelings to each other, they fight and rage yet long for one another, shed blood tears and to that add the social barrier that separates them.”

 

Clarke, much to her own annoyance, found herself peeking at towards Lexa. The lazy ponytail and those flickering evergreen colour of her eyes shimmering with fascination, all she while as she ran her long fingertips against the bashed cover of the supposed antique. She was beautiful.

 

Clarke cleared her throat. “Then why do you like it so much?”

 

“Because it’s more realistic than others. Love should be epic, not just a beautiful quite bloom. It should be rampant, fuelled with passion and faith. Interbred with lust and longingness.”

 

“You have a way with words. Such a goofy nerd, Commander.”

 

“Clarke.” Lexa side glancedly glared at the blonde but it was more of a playful glare.

 

“What, doofus?” Clarke gave Lexa a light shove on her shoulder.

 

“It’s words. Words are all I have to take your heart away. By Boyzone.”     

 

Something tethered inside Clarke. Maybe it was the way Lexa said it, the mere way those gentle words made safe passage through those pillow lips, green eyes lashed on blue. It was evoking some substance inside Clarke, the detonation of warmth and Clarke wondered if Lexa felt the same.

 


	10. Scene 10

_“I was wondering, we didn’t specify a time.”_

_There was a beat._

_Clarke didn’t need to be told which time Lexa was talking about._

_“How about midnight?” Clarke replied without a break._

_“Sounds …. Sadistically appropriate.”_

The sign read Mt. Pocono.

 

The place, or precisely as Lexa corrected, a borough, was quaint.

 

A small kind of town where every person knew one another. Clarke was sure of that. She pondered if anyone ever got bored of seeing the same old things, same old _howdy y’all_ faces, talk about the same rehearsed lines as if out off a play, and poke their pinocchio noses in each other’s business. It seemed avoidable anyway.

 

The frost weighted graciously in the weather. It wasn’t too hot nor to cold. Just an optimum temperature that would soothingly settle in your skin.

 

Her hands were on the wheel, the breeze that crashed against her vehicle beautifully settled in her lung. Maybe this was a first time in a long run, Clarke felt her endless crowding thoughts run away in the winds.

 

She felt acid in her stomach, her intestine walls churning in depleted voices of hunger. She squeaked out of her seat when they finally reached Bloomsburg earning a distinct eye roll from her another companion who was eyeing the lines of the map.

 

 

 

“You are drooling, Clarke.”

 

“No, I’m not.” Clarke answered defensively.

 

But she was. The water watering fragrance of bacon, blueberry pancakes, waffle dipped in syrup and a cup of hot cocoa was sitting in front of her and she was devouring her prey with languid eyes. She fidgeted, blue eyes fluttering to meet green ones, whether it would be offensive if she started eating even though Lexa’s had yet to arrive but Lexa amusedly shook her hand.

 

“Do devour your prey, Griffin.”

 

Clarke might be dying of hunger but before digging in she squatted at Lexa’s hand for her statement.

 

Clarke Griffin was inhaling the food, disgusting, might she add. One time, her hand is summoning the pancakes, next it’s tearing up the bacon and within a blink, and it’s twirling up its fingers and licking the golden syrup. When Clarke had offered her a slice of her pancake, Lexa refused, she bit her inner cheek, to falsify her smile but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to either. And moments such as this, though small were filled with utter content was happening too often that was making her smile.

 

Lexa took a measured bite of the _special cheesecake_ and instantly moaned in silent pleasure. Her indulgence was clipped but soon she felt the curious gaze of Clarke Griffin on her.

 

“You didn’t offer me.”

 

Lexa’s following bite midway stopped. She rounded her own tongue inside her mouth cavity to brush off the effects of another impending smile, because let’s be honest, Alexandria Mikealson didn’t smile at all and now she couldn’t pass a moment without smile. Especially not when Clarke was furrowing her brows, pouting like a petulant child.

_How are you still eating?_

 

“Ok.” Lexa paused. “I’ll cut you a piece.”

 

But in milliseconds passage, she felt lithe fingers gentle clasp her own palm, gently pulling it away from herself. She watched in slow motion as Clarke hummed joyfully, tongue licking swiftly on chapped lips as she took in a bite of the cheesecake, from the same piece as Lexa’s, all the while as Clarke’s own hand was holding onto a sweaty Lexa’s.

 

Clarke didn’t even notice it, but Lexa did. She was aware. She was painfully aware when she felt a flicker touch of warm tongue sweep teasingly at the tips of her fingers. Her hand rooted to that very position, her own lips ajar. It was such a meagre touch, but it was arousing, tantalizing, so invigorating and ….

 

“Ahem, Ladies. Cheque?” the waitress cleared her voice at the scene before her. Lexa folded her arm back to herself, leaving a mildly unsettled Clarke on the other end.

 

There were a few minutes of under the breathe argument in hushed tones about who was to pay but Lexa won in her war of words.

 

“I’ll pay, Clarke.”

 

The ginger haired waitress twirled in her position, eyes drifting back and forth between the two girls. Finally when big doe eyes fell on narrow blue ones, the waitress cunningly shifted her gaze towards the brunette and then to Clarke herself, a sly grin floating in her features as if she knew something they didn’t. Clarke blushed red under her knowing glances, hands nervously moving fallen strand of blonde hair behind her ear.

 

 

Lexa had changed the stations for the tenth now, constantly changing from one to another when she couldn’t find the music of her choice. Long fingers was shooting forward to change again when Clarke beat her to it.

 

“No.”

 

But Lexa, offended, opened her mouth to ask something.

 

“No.” Clarke reprimanded.

 

“But, I …. “

 

“No and No to all the questions, Lexa.”

 

“But the mus …..”

 

“No …. “

 

Lexa slumped back in her seat. Hands crossed in front of her chest and she glared at the hanging glove compartment, her face acutely resembling that of a crouching tiger.  

 

Clarke shifted the rear glass so she could look at the crouched up cub next to her seat and immediately felt waves of closet cuteness and guiltiness wash over her.

 

“It’s not much but I have some music in my phone. You can check it out, grumpy.”

 

“I’m not grumpy.”

 

“Sure. That’s the same thing all grumpy people says.”

 

Lexa didn’t retaliate. Minutes passed but the phone on her dashboard lay untouched. Clarke couldn’t help but worry if Lexa was truly offended. Apologies were on the tip of her tongue when in her periphery view, she saw hesitant hand reaching out for the phone.

 

Seconds later, the solo music of _How To Save A Life_ filled the silence.

 

The music had a tone of depressing appeal in itself, she herself wasn’t so fond of it. Clarke couldn’t help but wonder, what made Lexa choose it.

 

 

 

The drive to Milton wasn’t that far off.

 

It was nearly as quaint as the previous places but it was open. The vast, endless vineyards stretched for miles overhead. They passed innumerable stalls on standby, lavishly decorated with country winery, various shades of golden liquid peeking out from the glass windows, _free sample tasting_ plastered on bold in the front.

 

“Want to try?”

 

“You wanna try?”

 

Lexa pressed her lips in a thin line. “Yeah.”

 

“Ok.”

 

“Ok.”

 

 

 

The first shop was a total bust. The old aged woman with silver linings had smiled in a malicious way through her crooked teeth when she had gestured herself to follow her to the inner depths of her _voodoo chamber?_

 

The shop was creepy to saw the least. It was dark, it smelled like a corpse and … Clarke was pretty sure she had just seen a rat somewhere around run through the door crossing. That was Clarke’s breaking point. Trust Lexa to pick the creepiest of creepy places.

 

She clamped onto Lexa’s hands and pulled her out front to the next shop.

 

The following tours weren’t so bad. Lexa hadn’t realized Clarke and she had been holding hands until she felt a certain lack of something warm in her palms. It was Clarke, who was already on the next one. To a third person it would have definitely appeared as creepy when Lexa had goofily stared longingly at the left hand that was still clinging the smell of Clarke’s.

 

If Lexa had been keep count them she would say that this would be there 3rd country wine tasting.

 

The present shop they were in had a grocery store right at their front. Lexa shuffled through the goods, picking out what she thought would be a necessity all the while keeping a third eye out for the blonde who was scraping something against a wine bottle.

 

 

 

A tall, well-built guy, _man,_ with uncanny rugged blonde hair dipped his head to address Clarke. One of his hands were settled behind his back and the other in his pocket as he flashed Clarke, what Clarke assumed, one of those smirks that made girls go dingy dong for him.

 

“Travelling cross country, eh?”

 

Clarke rolled her eyes. “Yes.”

 

Though she hadn’t exactly looked at the man, she was pretty sure that he had been talking to her chest and not to her face like most men and _not to be biased,_ most women did to her. Frustrating. “Alone?”

 

“No.”

 

The man shamelessly moved one or two steps forward, a bit unruffled and unsatisfied at her answer even though Clarke had stepped away from him but there was no downside to that smirk. The cheap cologne stuck her like a bee bite.

 

Clarke looked up his tall shoulders for the search of her brunette but all felt through. She cursed underneath, when her back pressed against the following shelf. It was then, almost out of thin air, Lexa appeared behind her, placing a feathery touch on the back of Clarke’s ramrod back. Her sheer presence spoke volumes.

 

“She’s with me.” Replied her stern voice bereft of any emotion.

 

Her steel ice gaze penetrated through her by stander’s one. Heavy booted steps immediately retreating.

 

Clarke found herself falling into the coolness of Lexa’s. Warm hands found the cold ones as if they had always known where to find each other.

 

“Oh. I …” Lexa didn’t bother to let him finish his stammering words, pulling the blonde out by her wrist.

 

“Thank you. But …”

 

“But you could have defended yourself. I know. Consider me a helping hand.”

 

Cool hands finally left hers and Clarke was hit by its absence. Her warm palms fell too clamped up and hot and somehow she yearned for that touch again to elevate herself from her own uneasiness.

 

“Thank you.” Clarke replied shyly.

 

“Hmm.” Lexa hummed against her. “I bought lots of snacks, just in case, _Hungry Clarke_ comes out to play.”

 

Clarke blushed at the appraisal and averted her eyes from Lexa’s. “You love it.”

 

“Hmm, maybe.”

 

Lexa reddened at her Freudian slip. _Maybe? You are such a piece of shit, Lexa. You are a piece of shit that digging herself into a bigger shit._

_Stupid crush. Stupid crush. Stupid curse ….._

 

Her internal battle of words was so vigorous that she didn’t notice the tinge of red and pink that embroidered Clarke’s ears and cheeks.

 

 

 

Their pace wasn’t fast but it was sublime.

 

Brookville. Clarion. Hermitage. All of them were now left behind in the rear mirror.

 

When finally Clarke couldn’t take anymore, she handed the keys over to Lexa.

 

Lexa was stubbornly determined to reach Cleveland soon so they had decided to not stop for a motel for the night.

 

As they ran fast the darkened environment, Clarke rubbed her head as she eyed the tangent lines of the map. Now if Clarke has been reading it correctly, which she highly doubts since she has been pretty much fighting to keep her eyes open against it gravity, there should have been some sort of a pedestal or any landmark on her right side. But there was none.

 

The last thing she heard was a frustrated huff from the driver’s seat before finally dozing into her dreamless slumber.

 

 

 

There was a light crack in her neck when Clarke shifted audibly against the glass window of Ark. Sleep riddled eyes creaked slightly at the darkened surroundings and the apparently empty driver seat. Clarke straightened up in the passenger seat, hugging onto the supposed big blanket, which Clarke was pretty sure she had left it in her bag which was in the trunk. _Lexa._

 

That was Clarke one and only thought when she realized she didn’t know where the brunette was.

 

The car was nicely parked along the side of the long farmlands. Clarke locked the door behind her, hugging the hefty blanket to her bod when the wintry breeze clattered against her pale skin. Blue eyes looked up to the infinite distance in search her and it was then she saw a darkened figure sitting hastily atop a short hill only a few feet away from her under the open skies.

 

When she neared the still oblivious brunette it was then she realized the tangent orange colouring up in contrast to the starlit glory of the night. Dawn was due soon.

 

She almost gasped in shock when she saw Lexa wearing just a baggy overburdening shirt that Clarke wonderingly thought might have belonged to Lexa’s father. In worn out jeans and bare feet, Lexa sat and the blonde shuddering in the mere thought that why hadn’t Lexa frozen already.

 

“You are drinking.”

 

“And you are here. Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

 

“Aren’t you cold?”

 

Lexa gestured to the cheap wine bottle, sheepishly smiling. “Keeping me warm somewhat.”

 

She saw Lexa stare out into the illuminating infinite, before sighing under the weight of the fading star light. Her gaze was numbed and fragile, a little bit broken around the edges but all Clarke could see was a masterpiece in its own creation. An un-paralleled beauty that Clarke itching to paint out again and again and again and she wouldn’t even get tired. _What the hell is wrong with you, Griffin?_

 

“It’s been a while since I have slept under the stars.” Admitted Lexa in the ongoing comfortable silence.

 

She didn’t list out the pros and cons in her list but some unknow-est heavenly power bewitched her, pushing Clarke forward until Clarke flung her blanket over Lexa enclosing her close to her warmth.

 

“God, you are cold Lexa.”

 

Her breathe was eerily cold. Her cotton shirt was dripping in frost breathe as well and her eyes, oh, glassy eyes they echoed a warmth that was pulling Clarke towards her. her flame.

 

Lexa shifted closer but there was a space between them. It made Clarke frown. _Why?_

 

“I smell.” Lexa replied groggily as if she could read Clarke’s wandering thoughts. The smell of cheap alcohol clogged in Clarke’s nostrils, sure, but somehow it didn’t deflate Clarke. She found it oddly soothing. It reminded her of something her father used to do. He would never hug her, nor even remain in close vicinity of her unless and until he was fully freed off the reeking smell of alcoholism. Clarke had always found it endearing. It was something that Niylah had never done. Alcohol had always made Niylah move two more steps forward to Clarke, than she had deemed necessary.

 

But this time, instead, Clarke moved up to cross the distance until cool breaths flushed against her heated cheeks. She felt Lexa stiffen but thankfully she didn’t move.

 

Clarke placed her head just on the edge of Lexa’s shoulder blades, answering soothingly to her distress. “I don’t mind. Really.”

 

“Still.”

 

 

 

 


	11. Scene 11

 

Clarke swirled the offcut of the cheap wine bottle, brushing her arid lips of the liquid.

 

“Her name’s Niylah Forrest. The ring that you found, that was the very ring she had proposed me with, back in 2012.”

 

If Lexa had gasped at the revelation, Clarke couldn’t have been sure, she schooled her features instantly. Lexa gave a questionable eye rise at Clarke’s certain nostalgicism but didn’t voice her thoughts. She could see and emphasise with the low key pain storming behind those morose blues.

 

“We were a cliché couple. Best friends to high school sweethearts, destined to have their happily ever after with two kids, a dog and white fence. And fucking hell, I believed that.”

 

There was an intermission in her words, Lexa wondered if that was all Clarke could let herself say at the moment. Even though she wanted to urge to blonde to say it all, to let it out in the open and not clog them in her reverie because it wasn’t healthy, Lexa didn’t say anything. She knew that Clarke had been told the same things on a broken repetition, she knew that Clarke was probably tired of hearing it too so she didn’t say. She didn’t say anything.

 

“She’s my best friend. She was there when dad died, she was there when my paintings were first showcased, she was there at my gallery opening, fuck, she even brought my very first painting. She was there and then she wasn’t.”

 

Lexa was rarely jealous. She considered it a petty emotion but she couldn’t control that green monster lurking in herself. She gritted her teeth at the unknown face of Niylah because she knew this was a fore-tale of a heart breaking story. She gritted her teeth and tensed her muscles because even though she was a third person to her story, she knew to love and to have lost someone like Clarke Griffin, they would be nothing short than a bloody fool.

 

“It was the first week of January, 2016. We were going to get married in the upcoming week ……”

_January 2016_

_“Babe? Niylah?” came Clarke’s shriek from the living room of the apartment. She was about to call the fiancée another time when the same figure finally emerged from the bedroom._

_“There you are, babe. Look at the room. The decorator had a heart attack at the disaster. Oh god, it feels like we are going to be a fucking disaster too!!”_

_“Oh, baby. Claire is an old hag. Don’t bother with her. Even if we are a disaster, I’m sure we’ll be a pretty hot one at one.” Niylah cooed at her Clarke, peeking lightly on her lips._

_“So you say. Anyway, your phone’s been ringing like crazy and … Oh, your cab’s downstairs.”_

_“Bye, babe. Love ya.”_

_Niylah was handed her briefcase and the door closed behind her._

_“Love you, too.”_

_Clarke locking up Niylah’s apartment, already running late for the meeting with her new art patron when the landline rang. She decided to let it ring. And so she did. But it rang again._

_“Someone sure as hell was persistent.” Clarke mumbled to an empty room._

_But before she could reach it, it went to the message. Clarke turned, back stepping on her heels when an unknown, husky female voice spoke._

_“Hey, it’s me, Echo. I … just couldn’t get that weekend out of my mind, you know. You, me, us …. That hotel room in Brussels. I’m in San Francisco for a while, I’m in hotel Grounders, downtown. Room no. 107, I would really love to see you again.”_

_Clarke was halted in her stride and replayed the message again. She felt that overbearing urge of bile clog up in her throat. She rushed to the bathroom to relief the contents out. Then came the barrage, that havoc of tears._

_Echo? Who was Echo? Brussels? When did Niylah go to Brussels? What the fuck was she talking about?_

_Brussels …. Brussels … Clarke rummaged through her mind. Yes, Niylah had gone there for a weekend for her firm’s lawyer convention, but that was more than a year ago. A year ago when they had nearly called quits to their romance when they felt that the distance was indeed breaking them off. But Clarke thought, no, she knew that they had made it through._

_Maybe it was a wrong number? The Echo woman didn’t clarify her message with a name. So there were chances that this was some narcissistic joke that destiny was paying on her._

_But, Clarke, what if … what if Echo was calling Niya …? No, no, Clarke have faith. Have faith in yourself and Niylah. Please have faith in all those years of friendship, and promises. Please have faith in your love._

_She splashed cold water against her shin, but her eyes were blood red. Of fear of that ugly truth._

_She touched the ring on her ring finger. Have faith on your love._

_Clarke crossed her leg, heels clicking impatiently against the wooden floor. Time and again, she would sniff into her handkerchief when hopeless tears would wet her eyes._

_She glanced towards the hotel entrance, head twisting whenever any girl would cross that threshold. Any girl of them could be Echo. That Echo._

_She had been waiting for an hour and a half when she finally stomped off to the receptionist, second time that day._

_“Do you know when Echo will be back?”_

_The woman, late in her 30’s or in early 40’s, looked at her annoyed._

_“May I ask who is asking?”_

_“A friend.” Clarke lied in a tight smile. She didn’t even know Echo’s last name. “An old friend.”_

_The woman on the other end opened the register. “Oh, well. She didn’t specify any time …. Oh Miss, there she is.”_

_Clarke within a blink turned around towards the said direction and finally met the model physique belonging to a blonde, Echo, who was entering the elevator._

_Clarke ran her hand, at the prime time towards the shutting doors of the metal box, whisking her way in politely._

_“Which floor?” asked the heavily accented woman._

_Australian, Clarke deduced. Blue eyes scrutinized the body in front of her. From her tall toned legs, to her optimally toned bod to that delicately done blonde bun and that angular face. She was fucking gorgeous and Clarke hated her already._

_She saw the woman pause at the button 7 waiting for Clarke for her reply._

_“Same.” Clarke nearly groaned out._

_She walked in hushed steps behind her suspect who keyed open to her hotel room. 107._

_At the empty corridor, Clarke realized she didn’t know what to do now. Should she wait for Niylah to come or …? Or just barge open the woman’s door and demand her answers. The silence of her pouring doubts was cracking up her skull into scenarios that made Clarke cut herself open._

_She waited and waited. Then she decided to call Niylah._

_“Hey baby. Where are you now? I mean, are you at your office?”_

_There was a slight yawn from the other side. “I forgot a file so I went home to pick it up. Heading for the office. Why?”_

_“Nothing. I just … wanted to hear your voice.”_

_“Really, princess? Love ya. Bye.”_

_“You too.”_

_Maybe that message was a hoax. Clarke reprimanded herself about her stupid suspicion. Shaking her head at her own lack of faith, she was about to turn around the corner, when a figure nearly bumped into her._

_Hurriedly, Clarke tried onto an adjacent hotel door, praying for it to open. In the darkness behind the door, Clarke zoomed her eyes onto the passer by that was walking onto Echo’s door._

_The figure had a bowl hat on her. Clarke didn’t almost recognize that face until that person tugged off her hat revealing the face. It was Niylah. Niylah who was smiling as she knocked on her door, Niylah who had contentedly kissed that other’s woman’s cheeks. Niylah who let that Echo close the door to their room._

_Clarke’s sky came crashing down on her._

 

 

 

Adolescent tears streamed down the creamy skin. Clarke folded her legs and placed her shin against it to steady her but some tears turned to sobs. Lexa’s sobered up, the proverbial heart in her clenched at the unfolding sight.

 

Clarke was crying and Lexa didn’t know what to do. It hurt Lexa to see her drowning in the past but the brunette didn’t have any remedy. She tightened her own palm in a fist, her own eyes glittering in dried moisture.

 

In weepy eyes, Clarke continued, “That afternoon I affronted Niylah. I near about begged her to tell me if there was something she had wanted to tell me, anything, something. But she just looked at my eye, appalled and said no. There wasn’t anything she had hidden from me. On my fucking face. I couldn’t confront anyone. Not yet. So I drunk myself in a bar. Let a good looking guy buy me drinks and when he leaned forward to kiss me, I leaned in too. When he invited me to his house, I went.

 

The next morning with my half drunk self I ended at her steps. She was so angry, like she had any right to be. She fussed at me for making her worry and ordered me to freshen up, saying something like she had a meeting to attend ….. ”

 

 

 

_….. “Like that “Hotel Grounders” kind of meeting?” voice battered in vile, Clarke nearly spit at her._

_“Clarke?” came that wavered, sceptical call. Niylah was already breathing heavily, her eyes fluttering at a fastening speed. She was sniffing._

_“How could you do that to me? How ….” Clarke’s anger coerced with heartache left her run short of words._

_“Clarke … baby, it was a mistake. I thought we were done, I thought you gave up on us, on me. I got … I got distracted, derailed. I was just so fucking hurting, I just needed someone … and she was there. I’m sorry.”_

 

Dawn was finally breaking and under its morning-tide, so was Clarke. She brushed away the new water, breathing heavily.

 

“She went down on her knees, begging me. But I just couldn’t meet her eyes. Meet her eyes and see through her lies, you know.”

 

 

 

_“Why did you go back yesterday?” Clarke asker her, finally._

_“To end it, of course. Listen, Clarke, we are getting married in a week. The invitations are all out. Please, baby, please. Forgive me. I’ll be faithful again. I love you, princess, Please.”_

_But Clarke was too far gone to be lost. The cobalt in her eyes only saw the betrayal, the stab that was implicated on her from her back. The funny thing was she wished she could forgive her. She loved Niylah and seeing the one you love break in front of you wasn’t a cakewalk either, it was like salting in your open wounds. Clarke stood tight lipped. How could you forgive someone who had promised you forever? How could Niylah even ask for Clarke’s forgiveness? Was she that low, that self-centred?_

_She sought vengeance for her soul. It was so pathetically cruel for someone so much in love to do to her beloved but maybe she was a sadistic bastard. She wanted Niylah to bleed in blood tears like she was bleeding without a cut._

_“I slept with someone last night.” Clarke commented hotly._

_Niylah like on autopilot distanced herself from her blonde fiancée. She stood shocked as if waiting for the ground to swallow her whole. The eyes widened in shock and back stabbing, those trembling lips gritting violently against her bottom lips, and her hands cupping her own face as she cried._

_“How could you Clarke? Why?”_

_Clarke gave Niylah a solitary glance before masking her emotions on. She recited Niylah’s_

_“Niylah … baby, it was a mistake. I got … I got distracted, derailed. I was just so fucking hurting, I just needed … and he was there. I’m sorry.”_

_Clarke caressed Niylah’s palms within hers, her own cheeks still wet from dried stains._

_“Listen, Niylah, we are getting married in a week. The invitations are all out. Please, baby, please. Forgive me. I’ll be faithful again. I love you, princess, Please, forgive me this once.”_

_But Niylah shook her head. Eyes blood shot._

_“I can’t forgive you, Clarke. How can you even ask me this?”_

_Clarke wanted to scream at her, then how can you ask me for same thing? But she didn’t._

_Niylah turned her face away from Clarke and without much ado, Clarke walked herself out of the door._

 

 

Clarke finally woke herself of that memory lane. They sat in silence.

_The wedding was called off the following day, earning an avalanche of reactions from all ends. Unearthly gossip of their life spread like wildfires and Clarke couldn’t do anything but let it all go down in flames._

_What? Why? How? When? Really? Ridiculed questions clustered Clarke. People talked behind her backs in hushed whispers like how they all knew this wasn’t went to be ….. how life is not a happy ending but a reality …. How love was weakness …. How compromise and adjustment held marriages together and not unperturbed love and faith …._

_Clarke told nobody except for her mother who didn’t place her judgemental opinion on her like Clarke would have predicted. Instead Clarke had cried tediously in her mother’s arms throughout the night and up till morning. And it was then in a day’s notice Clarke had asked for space from all the drama in San Francisco and shockingly again her mom gave her consent without any questions._

_Her mother had told her two things before Clarke set foot in the city of lights._

_“Don’t forget to call me.”_

_And “Love is not a weakness.”_

 

Clarke hiccupped at the own grey memories every now and then till the very edge. She bit her lips with the hardest vigour to numb her cries but she couldn’t hold her dam of clogged tears any long. Beside her, Lexa didn’t say a word. The heart wrenching past of Clarke’s, myriad of questions trespassing her thoughts.

 

“Did you really cheat?” Lexa blurted out, sensibility side had apparently left her side. She jerked her hands to her mouth but the words were already out.

 

“You don’t think I did?” Clarke snapped at her. “You don’t even know me well enough.”

 

“I know enough to say you didn’t cheat. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed.” Emerald dark gardens shone heavily under the pale orange skyline.

 

Fresh new tears betrayed Clarke again. “I went to his house but I couldn’t cross his threshold. It felt wrong. It felt …. not me. He bitched me and I left.”

 

“But you told her that you cheated. That’s ….”

 

Clarke filled in her gaps. “Crazy? Stupid? Narcissist? Yeah, love makes you do crazy stupid things, Lexa. But you know what hurt the most? She didn’t even hesitate to blame me. She just blamed me. No in between.”

 

This time it was Lexa was reached for Clarke. She tentatively touched her tensed shoulders. Clarke felt tired and emotionally drained out. She bent her head over on Lexa’s shoulder blades, silent whimpering still ringing under the outbreak of wee hours of the morning.

 

Lexa tenderly ran soothing circles on the breathless blonde’s back who nuzzled deeper into Lexa’s curved hollow.

 

“It’s a new day, Clarke. New hopes, new dreams. Rest. I’ll be here, when you wake up.”

 

As the somnolent girl snoozed, in uneven breaths, Lexa mopped the desiccated waters up the smooth.

_She should never cry. If it was I, I would have never let her cry._

 

She admired Clarke’s unwavering strength of holding out this long, for braving the odds and standing her ground. Lexa didn’t know what she would have done if she were in Clarke’s shoes, she respected Clarke even more.

_Affection is when you admire someone’s strength._

 

Lexa knew she felt strong admiration and affection towards the blonde but couldn’t help but feel herself fall just a little bit for her even more.


	12. Scene 12

 

Sometimes it’s better to leave some facts unattended, unperturbed, because judging someone when you weren’t even in their shoes to begin with was unfair. And Lexa knew from Clarke’s shadowy sky blues that she had enough.

 

Losing love makes our slate exceedingly blank and Lexa learnt it the hard, rather non-platonic way, but _love is love is love_. So no matter how many reasons she deduced to satiate her quench, yet she found that despite all, she would do anything to make Clarke Griffin smile again.

 

Even if it was a tad bit.

 

They both let yesterday’s whirlwind night riddled in hefty forlorn memories vanish away in the abyss. A silent understanding developed, that spoke louder than any action, which seemed elevated Clarke to an ordnance of serenity. She found herself constantly stealing stolen glances from the googled worn brunette, thin lips biting against the rear mirror, a growing smile illuminating the crevices of her pale face about what thoughts that could be pondering inside Lexa Mikealson.

 

 

 

“I need a shower. I need it, Lexa.” Clarke exasperates lamely under the noon sun.

 

“We would have in a hotel by now and not ….” Lexa trots her glasses slightly down her nose and looks pointedly at the dramatic blonde. “….In some terrain if you had been paying attention.”

 

Clarke stuck out her tongue.

 

“I can’t believe you. How the hell can one miss the gigantosorous sign?” Lexa slows down the car, eyeing for any sign for the almost deserted road ahead but all she’s met in sublime void. She then looks back to Clarke who’s fanning herself off some pamphlet before curling it in a ball and throwing it inside some corner of her baby.

 

She feels Lexa’s staring but all she heaves out, “I can’t believe I missed a good night’s sleep over this shit.”

 

They were travelling the instructed lines of … somewhere out of … somewhere …. Hoping to head somewhere when a pair of heads were screaming out for help just ahead of them, catches them off guard. Lexa’s first thought was to shoot past them so fast that Clarke couldn’t even see them, but alas. Travelling in light’s momentum in this box of tin, _Amen, Mr. Griffin,_ was nothing short of reaching for the moon.

 

“We have to help them, Lexa.” She says, just as Lexa begrudgingly expected.

 

“No.”

 

“Why not?”

 

Lexa addresses Clarke, hands flying minutely in the air before them as if trying to stand post the validity of her statement. “They might be serial killers dressed in moronic tuxes. Who the hell wears tux in this weather? I have to say Griffin, they are deranged in the very least.”

 

“You watch too much CSI.” Clarke grabs another magazine, fanning herself to free of the clung hotness.

 

“And you watch none. You are ignorant.”

 

“Ignorant is bliss. Now, stop the car, Alexandria.”

 

“No way, Dolores. I don’t get paid enough for this fucking shit.”

 

Clarke made _what the fuck, you promised not to say the who-shall-not-be-named name again and now I’m gonna have to kill you_ face at Lexa.

 

“I thought we were bringing out the big guns.” Lexa shrugged promptly stating. Even in the cloudiness of her embarrassment, Clarke couldn’t help but smile.

 

“We are going to have a talk about your certain use of profanity soon. Now stop the car. Look at them, they seem so desperate puppies and their car’s all busted.”

 

\“Yeah.” Lexa pauses, scrutinizing them from feet away. “One of them looks like a bulldog ready to pounce and the other’s scramming like a chihuahua.”

 

Clarke grunted at her and poked her side, yelping a squeak from her.

 

“Oww. Ok. If this ….” Lexa waved her finger ideally between her and Clarke and the distant duo, “Turns out to be _The Hitcher 2.0,_ I’m running straight for the hills leaving your sweet arse behind.”

 

Lexa bites her inner cheek at the slipped innuendo but Clarke catches the slip within a blink. 

 

“You find my ass sweet. Huh.”

 

“We are finally docking.” Lexa rolls her eyes, steering the car towards the lost pair.

 

 

 

“Hey. Can you give us a ride to the next town? Our car’s kinda bummed out.” The brown haired guy dopily smiled at Clarke.

 

“And where is this next town?” Lexa piped in before Clarke could.

 

“Oh, it’s Akron.” Again, the doe eyed guy said proudly, almost bouncing up and down its place like a rabbit, clinging on to the scrawny well build guy who had now over thrown his tux over his shoulders.

_They didn’t look like mass murderers to Lexa, but looks can be deceiving._

 

She maintained her hard unperturbed gaze on the little hobbit until Clarke elbowed her at her ribs. Again.

 

“Women.” Lexa huffs underneath her breath but close enough got Clarke to hear. “Sure, the more the merrier.” She faux smiles before clinking on the dormant engine.

 

“We just got married.” Happily chirped the little guy to break in the null silence.

 

“By the way, I’m Miles Brown. And this handsome fellow beside me is Atom Ward or rather Atom Brown. He took up my name, my chubby bear.”

 

Lexa grimaced. _Whipped._ But by the dead glare the man named Atom threw her, she knew she had been caught.

 

Lexa cleared her throat.

 

“So, you are not some runaway couple serial killers?”

 

There was yet again jab into the ribs. Clarke glared at her, conniving-ly, might she add and in her rear mirror she could see a mild discomfort in Miles’s face. The chihuahua was frowning and the bull dog, Atom was breathing down her neck. Lexa felt she was this teeny weeny far was actually dripping under its howling drools.

 

“It’s just that …. You know …. Hitchhikers with tuxedos and all …. “ Lexa added weakly for reassurance of her previous accusation.

 

“Oh, that’s because we eloped yesterday. At Atlantic City. It was fun and so romantic. Wanna hear it?” Miles echoed a small smile, something that Clarke encouraged further on.

 

“Sure.”

 

“We just met 3 months ago at Philadelphia. It just clicked. Like a lock to its key. Atom, here proposed the first date, all shy and stammering.”

 

 “I wasn’t …. Stammering.”

 

“Darling, I found it endearing.” And kissed him warmly on his cheeks. “Anyway, one date turned two and then three rolled over and we kinda lost count. We went to Atlantic City for our two month anniversary and Mr. Big here just out of thin air said, “Hey, Brownie, wouldn’t it be great if we eloped here?” And I thought why not. I mean, why not right? So I said yes. And here we are back at my hometown, so tell my parents.”

 

Clarke smiled sadly at the confession. “3 months is short time.”

 

“Yeah. But when it feels so right, how can it be ever wrong?” Miles happily chimed the memory.

 

 

 

“Already meeting the in-laws.” Lexa asked.

 

Atom stiffened a bit, collaring his buttoned shirt.

 

They stopped at some eatery where both Clarke and Miles excused before their departure had excused themselves to their respective bathrooms, mostly to freshen up.

 

Lexa circled the keys in her fingers, pushing back her aviators up her nose.

 

Atom stop awkwardly stood against the car door, boots fidgeting against the sandy pavements.

 

“Nervous?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You ought to be. I hear they can be quite the breathing dragons.”

 

Atom amusedly raised a singular eye brow at her.

 

“Talking from experience?” His eyes were almost too playful glancing to the vacant seat of the blonde.

 

Lexa raised smirked, her white perfect teeth flashing in her red ruddiness.

 

“No. Not at all. I don’t think you have to be so worried though. I see the way you look at him. If they can’t see it, then they are ungracious bigots.”

 

“Thank you.” Came a rather soft reply from a brawny man like Atom.

 

Lexa shrugged. Clarke cleared her throat from behind them, closely followed by Miles, who beamed at his partner.

 

Clarke gently squeezed Lexa on her thigh.

 

“Quite the pep talk.”

 

“You heard? How much?”

 

“Just enough.”

 

“I didn’t say that much.” Lexa reprimands but Clarke disagrees in her hoarse velvet voice that swoons Lexa, leaving her no place to argue back.

 

“You said enough.”

 

Clarke puts up her googles and looks away. The conversation halts and comes to a stop, even though she had left Lexa brimming with question.

 

The terrain flows past them breezily, the car swiftly flowing through with the vast forever stretching golden fields tinted with green on one side and the rhythmic melody of the docile waters on the other. Lexa shrugs on her glasses, concentrating on the untraversed path ahead, eyes still searching for the lost look in Clarke’s own eyes which are themselves shrouded in black darkness.  

 

Most of the time, Lexa’s so busy drowning and wishing for that blue romance that plays silently in the backseat of the car, that she doesn’t see how Clarke looks and at her time and again behind cloaked eyes like Alexandria Mikealson is water and she’s parched, stuck eternity in a desert.

  

They were almost nearing Akron when Miles all but shrieked, “Its carnival time in Akron. Maybe you could stick around for that? You helped us and it’s the least thing I could do for you. The organiser’s a close friend, I could put a word in and all of the rides will be free ….”

 

“Breathe, babe.” Cooed Atom.

 

“Yeah. I mean I’ll .. we’ll be happy …”

 

“Ok, we sure.”

 

“Clarke?”

 

Clarke smiles way too brightly at the upheld prospect. “Yeah. I haven’t been in a carnival for ages. So ok. We’ll be having so much fun, Lexie – loo.”

 

“Flattery will get you everywhere, dorky Griffy.” Lexa deadpans, swirling the car towards their residence.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't forget about this fic. My semester exams and the hardware problem of my laptop kinda made it impossible to post. Sorry for the delay. And I know this fic is short. :-/


End file.
